Doctor Maria Tereza Cabrera Bellini, convicted of torture in a rehabilitation clinic for drug addicts in Ribeirão Preto (SP). — Photo: Reproduction/EPTV
This week, the Public Prosecutor's Office sent a letter to the Court so that doctor Maria Teresa Cabrera Bellini, convicted of torture in a rehabilitation clinic for drug addicts in Ribeirão Preto (SP), can be included on Interpol's wanted list.
According to prosecutor Aroldo Costa Filho, in the request to the judiciary, he requested that the Federal Police investigate whether the psychiatrist left the national territory and, if so, an alert be issued to international authorities.
As of Friday (28), the request had not yet been responded to, according to the MP representative.
Before being the target of an arrest warrant and being considered a fugitive, Maria Teresa normally received medical insurance in the region.
Technical manager and partner of the unit, the doctor was accused of intimidating inmates, ordering them not to report the attacks that occurred at the clinic, which closed in 2014. She is the only person among the four convicted in the case who was not arrested by the authorities.
In addition to Maria Teresa, Marluci Cabrera Bellini Henares and Djalma Antônio Henares Júnior, arrested in Portugal after being on Interpol's wanted list, and Agelo Bellini Neto, a clinic monitor arrested in Cravinhos (SP), were also convicted.
They were all subject to arrest warrants after the case became final, that is, all appeals were exhausted at the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) with a sentence of 17 years and six months in closed prison.
When contacted by the report, the doctor's defense informed that they had nothing to declare. Throughout the investigations, she and the other defendants denied being responsible for the abuse.
The psychiatrist claimed in her statements that her conduct at the clinic was limited to prescribing medication and evaluating patients, and stated that she was unaware of any occurrence of physical or psychological violence.
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Torture in the interior of SP
The violence committed at the Alcohol and Drug Treatment and Recovery Center began to be investigated in August 2014, when the Civil Police and the Public Ministry rescued ten patients after reports of attacks were taken to the Prosecutor's Office.
According to the complaints, patients were subjected to beatings with pieces of wood and billiard cues, were tied to the floor and to stretchers with ropes and hospital straps, in addition to being exposed to public punishment and humiliation.
The investigation also found the forced use of a cocktail of sedatives nicknamed by the victims "danoninho", and that the monitors administered it without medical criteria to dope and nullify the physical resistance of the inmates.
In the process, former patients also reported episodes of sexual violence. Lawyer Luís Henrique de Souza Fallone, a former patient at the clinic, compared the place to a "mixture of a concentration camp and a Guantánamo prison."
Fallone reported that, in his first consultation in 2014, he tried to discuss the suggested therapeutic methods in a friendly way.
In response, the doctor stated that "whoever used drugs lost" and ordered immediate physical restraint of the monitors. The lawyer said he was attacked with punches, kicks and hanging while Maria Teresa laughed in the room in front of him.
From sentencing to extradition requests
The judicial process dragged on for 12 years due to the complexity of the case and the sequence of appeals presented by the defenses in higher courts.
The Public Ministry's complaint was filed in June 2017. The pre-trial phase included testimony from investigators, police officers and dozens of witnesses, including 24 former inmates who exposed the routine of beatings and doping in the unit.
After the first instance sentence, in 2020, defense appeals were processed by the São Paulo Court of Justice (TJ-SP) and the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), in Brasília.
The conviction with the final and unappealable sentence occurred in June 2026, allowing judge Carolina Moreira Gama, from the 2nd Criminal Court of Ribeirão Preto, to issue the definitive arrest warrants.
With their lives established in Portugal at the beginning of the process, when they were not yet fugitives, lawyer Marluci Cabrera Bellini Henares and psychologist Djalma Antônio Henares Júnior ended up joining the Interpol list and were arrested in July this year.
Marluci Cabrera Bellini Henares and Djalma Antônio Henares Júnior, convicted of torture in a rehabilitation clinic in Ribeirão Preto (SP). — Photo: Reproduction/EPTV
Currently, the two remain detained in preventive custody in Portugal, and Brazilian justice awaits the processing of extradition requests.
The defendants' defense asked that they serve their sentence in Portuguese territory, but the São Paulo Public Ministry maintains that the sovereignty of the trial and the criminal jurisdiction of the crimes belong to Brazil.
The press office of the Portuguese Ministry of Justice confirmed to g1 that the extradition process is being analyzed by the competent services of the Portuguese government.
Rehabilitation clinic in Ribeirão Preto denounced in 2014 for torture against patients. — Photo: AcervoEP
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