The 5th Specialized Panel of the Federal Regional Court of the 2nd Zone (TRF2) has sentenced the Federal Government to pay 50 thousand reais R$50,000 (R$1 – US$1,8) to a freelance reporter from Editora Abril, for moral damages.

According to the lawsuit, she suffered verbal and physical abuse was verbally and physically abused by soldiers from the Military Police during the New Year´s Eve party at the Copacabana Fort in 1999. This attack would had been a retaliation for the fact that the journalist had photographed acts of violence against a fellow of the newspaper Jornal do Brazil, who tried to capture images of the fall of an awning falling over the place in which the ex-President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and several authorities would be during the event.

The Union defended it self alleging that there was no technical evidence of this violence, once the Legal Medical Institute´s (IML) report did not show any physical damage on the journalist.