Brazilian researchers announced on April 16, 2025 that a decades-old identification from the Perus clandestine mass grave was incorrect. The revision was made public by the Perus Project, a partnership of the Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship, the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp) and São Paulo's City Hall. Work was coordinated by the Center of Forensic Anthropology and Archeology (CAAF/Unifesp) and the Special Commission on the Political Dead and Disappeared (CEMDP).
At CAAF the remains were examined with three types of analysis, including DNA comparison with first-degree relatives. The new tests produced a 100 percent genetic match between certain bones and the Casemiro family. The bones that had been buried in 1991 as Dênis Casemiro are now held in the Perus Project archive and do not match any samples currently in the database. The project also identified Grenaldo de Jesus da Silva, who was 31 when he died in 1972 during a hijacking at Congonhas airport. With these results, six political militants are now officially recognised among the Perus remains.
The identification work had slowed and the special commission was disbanded during Jair Bolsonaro's government (2019–2022). President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva recreated the commission and identifications resumed in 2024. Officials said the original error stemmed from technical limits — an earlier method had relied on a photograph superimposed on a skull before DNA tests existed — rather than negligence. Documents show falsified death reports at the Legal Medical Department and anonymous burials, and witnesses later challenged official accounts.
- Perus grave: 1,092 bones
- Estimated politically disappeared: at least 42
- Families sampled: 34
- Comparison work: 80 percent concluded
- Officially recognised militants: six
Difficult words
- identification — process of establishing who a person is
- clandestine — hidden or secret, often because it is illegal
- forensic — related to scientific tests in criminal investigations
- genetic — related to genes and biological inheritance
- disband — to stop a group officially operatingdisbanded
- falsify — changed documents to make them untruefalsified
- anonymous — without a name given or known
- comparison — examining two things to find similarities
Tip: hover, focus or tap highlighted words in the article to see quick definitions while you read or listen.
Discussion questions
- How might the disbanding and later recreation of the special commission have affected families waiting for identifications?
- What problems can arise when older identification methods, such as photograph superimposition, are used instead of DNA?
- What impact do falsified death reports and anonymous burials have on truth and justice for victims' relatives?
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