Brazil: Former Rio de Janeiro governor Witzel urges STF to overturn conviction and return to office

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Former Rio de Janeiro governor Wilson Witzel, removed from office in April amid allegations of corruption, on Tuesday, December 21, petitioned the Federal Supreme Court (STF) to overturn his impeachment and authorize his immediate return to office to complete his term.

The main argument is that the first evidence of the investigation that supported the impeachment process was authorized by Judge Marcelo Bretas, of Rio’s 7th Federal Criminal Court, who later plead suspicion to judge the ex-governor.

The defense requests that all evidence and subsequent procedural acts be declared inadmissible, which in practice debunks the accusations and nullifies the conviction for the crime of abuse of office.

“Given the flagrant rottenness of the “tree” (illicit evidence determined by a suspected and fully incompetent judge), which contaminated all results (evidence) arising from this rotten tree, leading to the invalidity of the resulting procedural acts, as well as the impeachment that would never have occurred if such illegal evidence determined by a suspected and fully incompetent judge had not existed,” reads an excerpt from the petition.

Witzel’s attorney also claims that he was subjected to a “court of exception” ready to “convict him at any cost, in contravention of the law.” The defense reiterated on Tuesday issues on the trial in the Special Mixed Court, a panel comprising state deputies and judges responsible for the impeachment process, which had been submitted in a previous appeal to the court. According to the ex-governor, these are points that prevented him from exercising his right to contradiction to prove his innocence.

Witzel had already lodged an appeal in the Supreme Court, but Justice Alexandre de Moraes, reporting judge of the case, upheld the decision that enforced the impeachment in July this year.

Another point cited by the attorney is the fact that the Legislative Assembly of the State of Rio de Janeiro (ALERJ) approved the ex-governor’s accounts for the 2020 fiscal year. At the time, Witzel said on social networks: “I was acquitted.”

The defense also argues that the recent change in the law of administrative misconduct, sanctioned in October by President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), political enemy of the ex-governor, determines that leaders can only be convicted when malice is proven, i.e., intent to damage the public coffers.

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