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href="https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Politics-Lack-of-Evidence-Behind-Lula-Trial-Intercept-Expose-20190609-0014.html">https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Politics-Lack-of-Evidence-Behind-Lula-Trial-Intercept-Expose-20190609-0014.html</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Politics, Lack of Evidence Behind Lula
Trial: Intercept Expose</h1>
June 9, 2019<br>
<br>
<i><b>Intercept posts:</b></i><i><b><br>
</b></i><i><b><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/brazil-archive-operation-car-wash/">https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/brazil-archive-operation-car-wash/</a></b></i><i><b><br>
</b></i><i><b><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/brazil-car-wash-prosecutors-workers-party-lula/">https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/brazil-car-wash-prosecutors-workers-party-lula/</a></b></i><i><b><br>
</b></i><i><b><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/brazil-lula-operation-car-wash-sergio-moro/">https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/brazil-lula-operation-car-wash-sergio-moro/</a></b></i><br>
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<p>On Sunday, Glenn Greenwald’s The Intercept Brazil
published an extensive and hard-hitting expose on the
alleged political motivations behind Operation Car Wash
(Lava Jato) task force against former president Luiz
Inacio <a
href="https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Brazils-Judge-Gives-Lula-9-Years-Over-Lava-Jato-Case-20170712-0028.html"
target="_blank">Lula</a> da Silva and the Worker’s
Party (PT), as well as the unethical involvement of
current Minister of Justice, Sergio Moro. </p>
<p>The documents were released in a three-part series
where according to The Intercept, it is proven, based on
leaked documents and Telegram messages between
prosecutors and Moro the “apolitical” and “unbiased”
team spent hours internally plotting how to prevent the
return to power by Lula and his Workers’ Party.</p>
<p>“These stories are based on a massive archive of
previously undisclosed materials — including private
chats, audio recordings, videos, photos, court
proceedings, and other documentation — provided to us by
an anonymous source. They reveal serious wrongdoing,
unethical behavior, and systematic deceit about which
the public, both in Brazil and internationally, has the
right to know,” the journalists stated.</p>
<p>On the first article, The Intercept argues with
evidence, that despite being portrayed in Brazil and
around the world as apolitical and concerned solely with
fighting corruption, the Car Wash prosecutors “plotted
to prevent the Workers’ Party (PT) from winning the 2018
presidential election by blocking or weakening a
pre-election interview.” </p>
<p>On Sept. 28, 2018, after Supreme Court Justice Ricardo
Lewandowski authorized that the then jailed Lula could
give interviews as part of free speech rights, one of
the prosecutors, Laura Tessler, warned in the chat room
that “a press conference before the second round of
voting could help elect Haddad,” referring to PT’s
presidential candidate Fernando Haddad. </p>
<p>While the chief of the prosecutor task force, Deltan
Dallagnol, said that they should “pray” so that the PT
doesn’t return to power. In a series of ongoing
conversations, the prosecutors, including Dallagnol,
actively strategized on how to undermine the possible
effect of the interviews or how to even stop them from
happening. </p>
<p>Things take on a more complicated turn on the second
article, in which The Intercept accuses current Minister
of Justice, and then-presiding judge Sergio Moro offered
strategic advice to prosecutors, passed on tips for new
avenues of investigation, and weighed in on the trial in
secrecy and outside the courtroom. </p>
<p>“Over the course of more than two years, Moro suggested
to the prosecutor that his team change the sequence of
who they would investigate; insisted on less downtime
between raids; gave strategic advice and informal tips;
provided the prosecutors with advance knowledge of his
decisions; offered constructive criticism of
prosecutorial filings; and even scolded Dallagnol as if
the prosecutor worked for the judge,” the report reads. </p>
<p>These sort of conduct, if true, is unethical for a
judge, who is responsible for maintaining neutrality to
guarantee a fair trial, and it violates the Judiciary’s
Code of Ethics for Brazil. Yet these are not new
accusations, as Lula’s defense teams have stated Moro’s
questionable involvement since the begin of the probe.</p>
<p>"Judge Moro made his bias and political motivation
clear from the beginning to the end of the process,"
Lula's legal defense team said back in July 2017, adding
that “his judgment has shamed Brazil by ignoring
overwhelming evidence of innocence and succumbing to
political bias whilst overseeing continual breaches of
basic human rights and the legal process.”</p>
<p>Moro ruled against Lula and rendered him ineligible to
run in the 2018 presidential election at a time when all
polls showed that the former president was the clear
frontrunner. This gave far-right Jair Bolsonaro a strong
lead that resulted in his presidency win. </p>
<p>Bolsonaro then, according to many, “rewarded” Moro by
creating an unprecedented powerful position now called
the “super justice minister”, which has complete control
over all the judicial branch, policing and social
control in Brazilian society. </p>
<p>Finally, the report concludes with the fact that while
publicly boasting about the strength of the evidence
against Lula, internally the Car Wash task force doubted
on the lack of hard evidence and the case built against
the former president. </p>
<p>“They will say that we are accusing based on newspaper
articles and fragile evidence … so it’d be good if this
item is wrapped up tight. Apart from this item, so far I
am apprehensive about the connection between Petrobras
and enrichment, and after they told me I am apprehensive
about the apartment story,” wrote Dallagnol in a group
Telegram chat with his colleagues on September 9, 2016,
four days before filing their indictment against Lula. </p>
<p>Lula’s trial was built on the accusation that he
received about US$1.15 million in bribes. According to
the Attorney General's Office, the amount would have
been passed on through an luxury apartment and a payment
for the storage of the company's assets between 2011 and
2016, as gifts received when he was president.</p>
<p>Valeska Texeira Zanin Martin, a lead lawyer in Lula's
defense team, said evidence "definitely proves that Lula
could not have been given a bribe." The lawyer argued
that bank and real estate records proved Lula's
innocence.</p>
<p>The three-story beach apartment couldn't have been
given to Lula as a bribe, as prosecutors alleged because
it is registered in the name of the company OAS with
financial rights in a federal bank account. Zanin Martin
said that if the company sold the apartment, the money
trail would have to appear in the federal bank
transactions, where records prove that Lula did not
acquire the property.</p>
<p>Yet as ‘proof’ in an internationally mocked and
criticized trial, Dallagnol presented a PowerPoint slide
filled with typos that had Lula’s name in the middle and
alleged crimes circled and pointing to his name. No
documentation or hard evidence was ever produced against
the PT’s leader. </p>
<p>On Sunday night, Justice Minister Moro responded to the
Intercept investigation saying that he "laments the lack
of indication of the source", yet does not deny any
accusation. Moreover, Moro defends that "there is no
sign of any abnormality or providing directions as a
magistrate, despite being taken out of context..."
Meanwhile, the Car Wash task force did not refute the
authenticity of the information published by The
Intercept.</p>
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