The Perus Working Group (GTP), which includes members from public human rights agencies and the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP), used anthropology and forensic archaeology techniques to identify the remains of a “disappeared” politician among human remains found in a secret mass grave in the Dom Bosco cemetery in Perus, São Paulo State (see Pesquisa FAPESP issue no. 250). The bones belonged to Aluísio Palhano Pedreira Ferreira, a trade union leader from Rio de Janeiro and a member of the Popular Revolutionary Vanguard (VPR). According to the São Paulo State Truth Commission (CEV), he was arrested, tortured, and killed by the DOI-CODI (the Brazilian agency responsible for gathering intelligence and repressing opposition during the military government) in São Paulo in May 1971, aged 49. DNA from one of the bones found in Perus proved genetically similar to that of Ferreira’s relatives. The announcement took place at the First National Meeting for Relatives held by the Special Committee on Political Deaths and Disappearances in Brasília in early December. In February 2018, the GTP identified the remains of another person disappeared by the military dictatorship: Dimas Antônio Casemiro, leader of the Tiradentes Revolutionary Movement.
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