In Brazil, the criminal reckoning for the 2019 Brumadinho dam disaster took another step forward. On June 16, Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice (STJ) rejected two separate requests to halt criminal proceedings against four defendants connected to the catastrophe.
One motion had been filed on behalf of Vale engineer Felipe Figueiredo Rocha. The other sought habeas corpus relief for three engineers from the German-Brazilian consulting firm Tüv Süd: André Jum Yassuda, Makoto Namba, and Marlísio Oliveira Cecílio Júnior. The collapse of the mining company’s tailings dam in the Belo Horizonte metropolitan area unleashed 12 million cubic metres of mining waste, killing 272 people — two of whom remain missing to this day. The court’s decision means the defendants will continue to face prosecution, underscoring the Brazilian judiciary’s commitment to accountability even seven years after the tragedy.
