“We Owe Lula a Fair Trial,” says Brazil Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – STF (Federal Supreme Court) Justice Gilmar Mendes said that the conviction of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the Guarujá (SP) Triplex case could be overturned if the suspicion of the then judge and current Justice Minister, Sérgio Moro, were to be considered, and stressed that the leftist deserves a fair trial.

“To revoke the conviction (of Lula) as a result of suspicion will lead to a new lawsuit. Eventually, this may occur,” he said.

“It is important to analyze this with complete detachment. The media has become very oppressive at a certain moment. A good result is not necessarily one of conviction. This is not correct. We must admit that we owe Lula a fair trial,” he said in an exclusive interview in his office with Reuters on Thursday, August 24th.

In June, Mendes argued that the former president should await the judgment of a request from his defense to nullify the Triplex lawsuit, under the allegation that Moro — responsible for Lula’s first conviction — was biased.

At the time, his motion was defeated by the 2nd Panel of the Supreme Court, but the examination of Moro’s suspicions was postponed, with no date set.

This occurred at a time when the first reports on The Intercept Brasil were beginning to emerge, quoting alleged conversations between Moro and the head of the operation’s task force at the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, Deltan Dallagnol.

In the divulged conversations, Moro seems to have directed MPF actions in Lula’s case, which was used by the leftist’s defense counsel to reinforce its petition alleging suspicious conduct.

Moro and the prosecutor deny wrongdoing and state that they cannot attest to the authenticity of the disclosed messages.

When asked if Moro had committed a crime in the incident disclosed by the messages, Mendes said that there are “strong indications of many irregularities that could be crimes against the people involved in all of these conversations.”

And he chose not to give an opinion as to whether the minister should step down from his position during the investigation of the case.

The justice, who is the main critic of Lava Jato’s methods at the Supreme Court, said that although he does not anticipate whether Vaza Jato’s revelations will favor the former president in the future judgment on his release, they are nonetheless being used as a tool to “invalidate” both the lawsuits and the sentences.

Mendes said there are “quite severe issues” in the leaks that could have consequences for the former president’s case. He said doubts exist as to whether the crime of corruption has really been committed, whether this crime is linked to Petrobras, which could remove the jurisdiction over the trial from the federal court of Lava Jato in Curitiba, and also whether there was an “appalling coercion” of whistleblowers.

“We will discuss this, including the illegal evidence as to whom, in relation to the defendant if it may eventually benefit him,” he said.

“Everything is quite serious, considering the scope of the operation and also the involvement of the judiciary and the prosecutor’s office, this is the biggest scandal involving the judiciary since re-democratization,” he added, referring to the alleged leaked messages.

Mendes said that, at some point, those involved in the messages incident will have to undergo a sort of “accountability”, to say what they did and did not do.

“Okay, let’s even convict the hackers and everything else, now was this deed performed or wasn’t it? And having been practiced, why was it practiced?”, he questioned.

Despite criticism, the STF justice acknowledges “clear and undeniable achievements” with Lava Jato because there was a framework of “corruption metastasis”.

“This is an undeniable asset, and one cannot deny the importance of Lava Jato, this needs to be acknowledged,” he said.

Mendes does not believe the operation will end, but he believes that the so-called “vaza jato” has inflicted an overwhelming symbolic damage on Lava Jato.

“We need to be very careful. Fighting crime cannot involve committing crimes. The fight against corruption continues, it must continue, with a greater institutionalization,” he said. “The idea of a monopoly in the fight against corruption leads to situations like this,” he said.

Mendes said he hoped that by October, the Supreme Court would judge the case involving the execution of a sentence of imprisonment after a conviction is upheld on appeal.

He admitted that the potential for the case to have repercussions on an eventual release of Lula led to the postponement of the judgment, but argued that the STF should address the issue and, if possible, it should occur at a different time from that of petitions by counsel for the former president.

“The fact is that it is very damaging to the discussion, having references to his name. Does this interest Lula? It interests everyone and, even if there is a decision that demands a final and unappealable decision, we have the means to determine imprisonment in certain cases in the second instance. This debate is going to have to take place,” he said.

The minister did not want to venture what would be the majority position of the Court on this issue today. He said the Supreme Court had taken a stand in favor of, in some instances, starting to enforce the sentence after the conviction in the first instance.

However, he criticized, “this then became a categorical imperative” and mentioned the fact that the Federal Regional Court of the 4th Region, a court that confirmed Lula’s sentence on appeal, has a binding precedent in this regard.

To start the enforcement of the imprisonment sentence, Mendes has advocated waiting for at least a decision on a further appeal to the Superior Court of Justice.