An allegedly innocent man spent 13 years in prison without trial in Brazil, following suspicions that he committed murder, and the state will now have to pay him over nearly 930,000 dollars in compensation, according to dpa. The High Court (STJ) in Brasilia said in its sentence that this is the worst known case of an "attack against human dignity and human rights" in Brazil, the news website G1 reported on Friday. The decision is not subject to appeal. Marcos Mariano da Silva, currently 58, spent 13 years in the Anibal Bruno jail in Recife, the capital of the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco, although to this day there has been no police investigation and no judicial process of his alleged crime. The man was freed after an investigation by the prison authorities indicated that the man's arrest was fully unjustified. "This is the worst case of a failure of justice that I have ever seen," STJ judge Denise Arruda said, according to reports. A lawyer representing Da Silva indicated that the man did not even have the chance to defend himself, and that while in prison he went blind and had tuberculosis. He is also said to have completely lost touch with his wife and his 11 children.
