Doctors convicted in the Kalume case continue to work Reproduction/ TV Vanguarda The STF (Superior Federal Court) denied a new defense appeal and maintained the conviction of the doctors in the case known as Kalume - an organ trafficking scheme reported in Taubaté, in the interior of São Paulo, in the 1980s. As in other attempts at the São Paulo Court of Justice (TJ-SP) and the STJ (Superior Court of Justice), the objective of the appeal was to annul the decision of 2024, which ordered the immediate arrest of the doctors. In the request, the defense pointed out the rejection of questions to a witness, the denial of a request for a confrontation between witnesses, the impediment of hearing a witness in plenary and alleged defects in the formulation of the questions presented to the jurors. ? Click here to follow the g1 Vale do Paraíba and region channel on WhatsApp STJ denies annulment of the conviction of doctors in the 'Kalume Case', an organ trafficking scheme In last week's decision, minister Luiz Fux stated that the allegations depended on the interpretation of infraconstitutional norms and the reanalysis of the set of evidence in the case, which is not allowed in an extraordinary appeal. When analyzing the case, the rapporteur highlighted that the TJ-SP had already concluded that there was no restriction of defense during the trial and that the decisions taken by the judge-president of the Jury Court were duly substantiated. He also highlighted that the conviction was upheld because there was sufficient evidence to support the jury's verdict. Of the three doctors convicted of the scheme, two have already died: Pedro Henrique Masjuan Torrecillas, in 2024, and Rui Noronha Sacramento, in 2025. Therefore, the only one who continues to respond to the case is Mariano Fiore Júnior, who has been on the run since October last year, when the court ordered his immediate arrest. In contact with g1 by phone, lawyer Sérgio Ivahy Badaró confirmed that he filed an embargo for a declaration pointing out an omission in Luiz Fux's decision. The new resource does not yet have a date to be analyzed. Mariano Fiore Junior, convicted in the Kalume case TV Vanguarda/Reproduction Kalume Case In 1987, in Taubaté, a city located 130 km from the capital of São Paulo, doctor Roosevelt Kalume was responsible for revealing the alleged organ trafficking scheme at the former Santa Isabel Hospital, where the Taubaté Regional Hospital now operates. Then director of the medical school, he contacted the Regional Council of Medicine of the State of São Paulo (Cremesp) to inform that an illegal program to remove kidneys from cadavers and living patients, for donation and transplants, was taking place without his knowledge and approval. In total, three doctors are involved: Pedro Henrique Masjuan Torrecillas (died in 2024), Mariano Fiore Júnior and Rui Noronha Sacramento (died in 2025). Kalume Case Reproduction/TV Vanguarda At the time, the matter became known nationally and the press called it the Kalume case, in reference to the surname of the doctor who reported the case to the authorities. The scandal resulted in the opening of a police investigation in 1987 and even became the target, in 2003, of a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) that investigated the role of criminal organizations in organ trafficking in Brazil. The investigation lasted 10 years and the Taubaté Civil Police held four doctors responsible for the deaths of four patients. The other doctor named in the investigation was Antônio Aurélio de Carvalho Monteiro, who died in May 2011, months before the trial. The case went to the popular jury in October 2011 – 25 years after the event – ??and resulted in the three doctors being sentenced to 17 years in prison. They were convicted of intentional homicides of the four patients. In 1993, Kalume even published a book about the case. To narrate the facts, he used different names than the real-life characters. However, the work, which is part of the case against the doctors, was no longer published. A 2012 report showed that a year after trial, the Kalume case was still far from an outcome See more news from Vale do Paraíba and the Bragantina region