Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra (; 28 July 1932 – 15 October 2015) was a Brazilian army officer and politician who served as a colonel in the Brazilian Army.

Biography

Born in Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Ustra was the head of the DOI-CODI, an investigation division of the Second Army from 1970 to 1974. He became known by the codename Dr. Tibiriçá. While head of DOI-CODI, 47 people officially died, although further investigation attributed 502 tortures to the division under his administration. In 2008, Ustra became the first military official to be recognized, by a civil court in São Paulo, as a

torturer Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...

during the dictatorship. He continued to be politically active in military clubs, in defense of the

military dictatorship A military dictatorship is a dictatorship in which the military exerts complete or substantial control over political authority, and the dictator is often a high-ranked military officer. The reverse situation is to have civilian control of the m ...

and anticommunist critics. He died at the age of 83 on 15 October 2015 of pneumonia caused by multiple organ failure after several weeks in hospital in Brasília.

Legacy

On 17 April 2016, during the voting of the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff in the

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon R ...

, Ustra was praised by deputy and future president of Brazil

Jair Bolsonaro Jair Messias Bolsonaro (; born 21 March 1955) is a Brazilian politician and retired military officer who has been the 38th president of Brazil since 1 January 2019. He was elected in 2018 as a member of the Social Liberal Party, which he turn ...

( PSC) in his discourse, calling him "the dread of Dilma Rousseff". On 8 August 2019

called him a "national hero" who prevented Brazil from falling into what the left-wing wants today". The Brazilian Government makes a R$15.307,90 monthly payment to Ustra's daughters.

Works

* Rompendo o Silêncio (1974) *

A Verdade Sufocada ''A Verdade Sufocada - A História que a Esquerda não quer que o Brasil conheça'' (in English: ''The Suffocated Truth - The story that the left does not want Brazil to know'') (2006) is the second memoir of the retired colonel of the Brazilian ...

(2006)https://www.amazon.com.br/Verdade-Sufocada-Historia-Esquerda-Portuguese/dp/8586662577 - a memoir book about the military dictatorship in Brazil.

References

1932 births 2015 deaths Brazilian anti-communists Far-right politics in Brazil Military dictatorship in Brazil People from Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul Deaths from pneumonia in Federal District (Brazil) 20th-century Brazilian military personnel {{Brazil-mil-bio-stub