Lawyers File a Lawsuit to Remove Minister Sérgio Moro After Leaks

By Arkady Petrov

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Four lawyers filed a lawsuit on Friday, June 14th, in the Federal Court of São Paulo petitioning for the removal of Sérgio Moro from the Ministry of Justice, “for an objective infringement of the principle of public morality”.

The lawsuit refers to conversations, disclosed by The Intercept Brasil, between Moro and Federal Prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol, pointing to the former’s guidance in the course of investigations into Operation Lava Jato.

Signed by lawyers Sean Hendrikus Kompier Abib, Eduardo Samoel Fonseca, Anderson Bezerra Lopes, and Gilney Melo, the lawsuit alleges the omission of president Jair Bolsonaro in the case, which would be “illegal and harmful to administrative morality”. The suit qualifies dialogues between Moro and Dallagnol as “flagrantly severe”.

Among the conversations reported by lawyers in the lawsuit, are those purportedly showing that Moro guided the Federal Public Prosecutor to obtain a new warrant for precautionary arrest against Odebrecht executive Alexandrino de Alencar, investigated in Lava Jato. At the time, October 2015, Alencar had been released by an STF (Federal Supreme Court) decision.

A further excerpt from the disclosed messages dates back to December 2015. Then judge Sergio Moro claims that a “source” would have advised him of a witness who could have been useful to the MPF in a case involving “one of the former president’s children”. The main assumption is that the two are discussing former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

After naming the witness, Deltan Dallagnol replied to Moro: “Thank you! We’ll make contact.” The nominee, however, did not want to testify, which led the prosecutor to talk to Moro again on the subject: “I called, and he said there’s nothing to talk about, etc. When I pushed him, he hung up on me…”, wrote Deltan.

“We are facing the combination, in this fact, of not only a biased act but deliberate collusion for the practice, in theory, of criminal injustice”, argue the lawyers after reproducing the messages.

In addition, the lawyers argue that Moro, as Minister of Justice, is the head of the Federal Police, which hinders a proper investigation of the facts by the institution.