Dead tourist Neil Juwaheer beaten by Brazilian cops, witness claims (From Sutton Guardian)

Dead tourist Neil Juwaheer beaten by Brazilian cops, witness claims

7:10am Thursday 29th January 2009

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(10)

A witness claims she saw Brazilian police officers beat up British holidaymaker Neil Juwaheer shortly before he died in custody, his family lawyers have revealed.

Mr Juwaheer, 35, died while on holiday in the north-eastern city of Fortaleza in July 2007 after local police claimed he swallowed a package of cocaine.

But, as reported in last week’s Guardian, an independent coroner’s investigation, funded by Mr Juwaheer’s parents, found the former estate agent died of severe head trauma and not a drugs overdose.

We can now reveal claims by witnesses that Mr Juwaheer, who used to live in South Croydon, was wrongly arrested on suspicion of burglary and was treated violently by security guards before being beaten by police.

Jose Rodrigues Veras Jr, from the family’s law firm in Brazil, said Mr Juwaheer strayed into private apartments next door to his hotel – the Hotel Colonial – because he was confused after mixing medication with alcohol at an earlier party.

He said: “What made him jump the fence into the condominium was the fact he thought that was the hotel.

“He felt ill, probably because he mixed alcohol with his medication and when the cab which took him back dropped him there he thought the condominium was the hotel."

Mr Veras Jr said the security guards “tied him up with a wire’’ and Mr Juwaheer, whose family own Thornton Lodge care home in Thornton Heath, was then “brutally placed into a police car and beaten up’’.

The Brazilian Public Ministry has also found that witness and officers’ statements were identical and names and times changed, he said.

“Neil was an honest person, friends with everybody, caring, polite and it was a great loss for those here in Fortaleza who knew him. He was killed by negligence and from being beaten up brutally,” he added.

Last week we revealed how respected Brazilian coroner Dr George Sanguinetti, who was hired by Mr Juwaheer’s parents – Chatrapal, known as Joe, and Pauline – in August, reinvestigated the original pathologist’s reports and found massive inconsistencies.

His damning evidence forced federal prosecutors at the Brazilian Public Ministry to last month reopen the case and call on police for answers.

At the time tourism police chief Milena Monteiro said doctors found no evidence of police abuse, such as marks or injuries on his body.

Chief Monteiro has since claimed police had been “transparent’’ in their investigation.

She said: “Since the process reopened we are more than happy to conduct more interviews and get more relevant statements, as needed.

“We have done everything we could to help at the time of the death.’’ Thornton Lodge employees said Mr Juwaheer’s parents, who live in Carshalton Beeches and have two other children, have been “distressed and ill’’ since their son’s death.

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(10)