Appio annuls lawsuit against Cabral based on hacked Lava Jato conversations

Judge Eduardo Appio, from the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba, responsible for the Lava Jato processes, annulled this Tuesday (2) the conviction imposed by former judge Sergio Moro (União Brasil-PR) against the former governor of Rio Sérgio Cabral. In 2017, Moro sentenced Cabral to 14 years and two months in prison in a closed regime for the crimes of corruption and money laundering.

Appio accepted the former governor’s defense request and considered the former judge, who is currently a senator, partial to hear the case. The decision took into account the hacked conversations of members of the operation, in the episode known as “Vaza Jato”. In the decision, the judge pointed out that “the dialogues were duly examined and judged as valid and legitimate by the highest appellate body in the country, the Federal Supreme Court”.

He pointed out that the dialogues of a conversation presented by Cabral’s defense between Moro and the then coordinator of the Lava Jato task force, former prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol (Podemos-PR), “demonstrate, in an absolutely safe and irrefutable way, that there are more than enough indications of complicity between these two agents of the Brazilian State, to the detriment of an accused in criminal proceedings”.

“The Public Prosecutors directly mentioned in the dialogues
from Operation Spoofing also did not recognize the veracity of Vaza Jato’s dialogues. Even so, they declared that they had deleted all the data contained in their functional cell phones, especially the then head of the MPF Task Force and now elected politician, Dr. Deltan Dallagnol,” wrote Appio.

The judge declared the nullity of all of Moro’s acts to the detriment of Cabral. In addition, Appio ordered the revocation of the preventive detention and the removal of the name of the former governor from the national bank of warrants, “revoking any restriction emanating from this federal court, on a past date, that implies a limitation of rights”.

“In short, in order to assure the accused Sérgio Cabral the guarantee of due process of law, impartiality of the judgment and full defense, I declare the nullity, due to lack of impartiality, of all decision-making acts practiced by the then federal judge Sergio Moro (now a politician elected) in the present process (and related ones) and to the detriment of Sérgio Cabral”, stated Appio.

In February of this year, the Federal Regional Court of the 2nd Region (TRF2) revoked the last house arrest order against the former governor. With that, he was allowed to leave the house, but he must continue to wear an electronic anklet.