Brazilian court acquits defendants in soccer academy fire that killed 10

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RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A Rio de Janeiro state court acquitted the last remaining defendants accused of responsibility in a 2019 fire that swept through the sleeping quarters of an academy for Brazil’s popular professional soccer club Flamengo, killing 10 teenage players.

They were accused of causing the fire due to negligence, and in May prosecutors had asked for their conviction. But Tuesday's ruling stated that there was insufficient evidence to prove that the defendants had directly contributed to the fire. The decision can be appealed.

“Criminal liability cannot be assigned to someone solely based on the position they held, without concrete proof of a decisive action or omission leading to the outcome,” according to the Rio state court’s statement published Wednesday.

Eleven people were initially charged in 2021, but charges only remained against the seven who were acquitted. Charges against the other four were dismissed at earlier stages.

Criminal liability for Eduardo Carvalho Bandeira de Mello, who was serving as the club’s president at the time, was dismissed due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.

Mariju Maciel, a lawyer for the family of 14-year-old Pablo Henrique da Silva Matos who died in the fire, said Tuesday's decision adds to their suffering.

“We live in a country of impunity. All the evidence demonstrated that there were gross errors that led to the deaths of these adolescents,” Maciel told The Associated Press.

The fire at the club, likely Brazil ’s most popular and one of the most recognizable in Latin America, sparked widespread outrage at the time.

Firefighters were called just after 5 a.m. to the sprawling Ninho de Urubu training grounds in Rio’s western region.

Like many professional clubs, Flamengo has a development program for promising young players. Many, particularly those who live outside of Rio, stay at the facilities while training.

The dream of many youths in Brazil, winner of five World Cup titles, is to make it into the professional ranks. The academies identify talented players at a young age, working with them as they grow, and the best eventually play for Flamengo or other teams in Brazil.

Within hours of the fire, the club’s president had called it “the worst tragedy” in the team’s history.

But questions quickly emerged about the safety of the container-like structures where 26 players were sleeping when fire struck.

For at least four years before the blaze, the club flouted city and code regulations at the training facility, incurred numerous fines and was the target of a lawsuit by state prosecutors related to the treatment of its academy players and their living quarters, an Associated Press review of city documents and a lawsuit found at the time.

The decision to acquit the defendants incensed some on social media. One account called Dona Lucia, with more than 90,000 followers on X, said: “Justice is what we least have in Brazil.”

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