The Brazilian sergeant arrested in Spain with 39 kilos of cocaine when he was part of the entourage of President Jair Bolsonaro has been sentenced this Tuesday to 14 years in prison by a military court in Brasilia. The drug that the soldier Manoel Silva Rodrigues was carrying hidden in three suitcases was discovered by the Civil Guard during a brief stopover in Seville by the Brazilian president in 2019, when he was en route to Japan to participate in the G20. The illicit cargo and the military were traveling on an Air Force plane that accompanied the president’s. Rodrigues is imprisoned in Spain, serving the six years imposed by the Court of Seville for the same events.
The Brazilian military judge has applied several aggravating circumstances, which raise the sentence from eight to 14 years, six months and a fine, reports the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo. The magistrate considers that the uniformed officer acted in bad faith because he took advantage of knowledge acquired as a member of the Air Force to circumvent the inspections of his luggage. He has also announced that he will request that the years in prison served in Spain be deducted from the Brazilian sentence.
During both trials, the soldier appealed in his defense to the economic constraints that prompted him to make a bad decision. His lawyer has argued that the uniformed man was not the drug seller, but a mere mule that was transporting it.
Rodrigues explained his behavior during the 2020 trial in this way: “The person who gave it to me [la droga] in Brazil she told me that her destination was Switzerland and that I had to put her in Europe. (…) She was going through economic difficulties. I have been in the Army for 20 years and I have never had any file, but a soldier in Brazil does not have a good salary. I always buy things on my trips, like mobile phones, and sell them to earn something extra.” She assured then that it was the first time that she trafficked drugs.
The Spanish court also fined him two million euros. And it was agreed that, to avoid a pull effect, the soldier would serve his sentence in Spain until he obtained at least the third degree. His request to do it in his country was rejected.
The cocaine, hidden in bales weighing just over a kilo, was discovered at the Seville airport, where Bolsonaro’s entourage made a stopover. After passing the suitcases through the X-rays, Civil Guard agents asked Rodrigues for explanations, who had said that it was cheese, a food of animal origin that is prohibited from being introduced into the EU from countries outside the community bloc.
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The sergeant had agreed to deliver the cache to a stranger with whom he met in a supermarket in Seville.
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