Dino tries to explain PF operation against suspects of offending Moraes in Rome

Minister Flávio Dino, of Justice, said this Wednesday (19) that the Federal Police operation against the couple suspected of offending Minister Alexandre de Moraes at Rome’s international airport, last week, was not a “speculative search”, and that there are “objectively delineated facts”.

The statement was given one day after Roberto and Andréia Mantovani had their cell phones seized at addresses linked to them in the city of Santa Bárbara D’Oeste (SP). The operation took place shortly after the couple gave testimony to the Federal Police about the alleged aggressions – they denied that they had attacked the magistrate and their son.

Flávio Dino said that the operation was justified “by the indications of crimes already perpetrated”, with a “multiplicity of versions offered by the investigated”.

“On the proportionality of the measure, I emphasize that it is past time to naturalize absurdities. And there is no ‘fishing expedition’ involved, as there is no speculative search, but objectively delineated facts, which are under legitimate investigation”, said the minister in the social media.

The operation caught the attention of the couple’s defense, who questioned the seizure of the equipment. “If the Federal Supreme Court had knowledge of the testimonies that were given today, I believe that a decision like this would most likely not come out”, said the lawyer Ralph Tórtima.

The couple’s car was also inspected by the agents, who were looking for a cell phone “wanting to find some connection between one of them and any question related to an electronic voting machine or a coup attack, which does not exist at all”, concluded the jurist.