Appio rejects prosecutor’s request to declare himself a suspect in judging Lava Jato actions

Judge Eduardo Fernando Appio, from the 13th Federal Criminal Court of Curitiba, rejected a request made by the Attorney General of Ponta Grossa (PR) to declare himself a suspect and to distance himself from the proceedings arising from Operation Lava Jato (see in full).

The decision was given over the weekend in the process in which he is cited for allegedly having donated R$13 to the PT campaign and using the initials “LUL22” as electronic identification in the Justice system of Paraná. Appio was the target of an action called “petition of suspicion”, an instrument to change the judge of the case when there is suspicion of partiality.

In the order, the magistrate states that the Prosecutor does not present arguments to request the suspicion within what the Code of Criminal Procedure says, and that there are “no specific facts that allow the assessment of the alleged suspicion of this Judge for analysis of the fact in question”.

Appio says that the Prosecutor did not even comply with “the most basic rules of urbanity and civility among federal authorities”, and that she would also be defaming the memory of her father, federal deputy Francisco Appio (PP-RS), who died in 2022 as a victim of a cerebrovascular accident (CVA).

“All with the purpose of putting pressure on this Federal Court, facing the sacred constitutional principles of the natural judge and all the guarantees of functional independence of the judges”, he added, classifying the Prosecutor’s action as “lighthearted” and of conjectures “devoid of any probative ballast and without any connection to the case under examination”.