Justice confuses names and attributes uncommitted crimes to pastor arrested by 8/1

The defense and family of pastor Jorge Luiz dos Santos, 58, are soon awaiting a decision from Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), which could grant him parole from the Papuda Penitentiary Complex, in Brasília. . He has been in prison for more than a year on suspicion of involvement in the acts of January 8, 2023.

Santos could have already been granted parole if he had not been the victim of a judicial error, which attributed to him crimes committed by a homonym – a person with the same name –, which led Moraes to deny the benefit. The magistrate is the rapporteur of the processes arising from the demonstration that led to the invasion and depredation of the headquarters of the Three Powers.

As reported to People’s Gazette lawyer Carolina Siebra, who defends the pastor, in September last year a request for parole was made to Santos at the same time as the death of businessman Clériston Pereira da Cunha, aged 46, due to a sudden illness while sunbathing.

Like Clériston, the pastor also has a delicate health condition and needs surgery. However, when analyzing the granting of provisional freedom, after three months of waiting, Moraes denied the benefit because of alleged crimes committed by Santos, attributed to him due to an error by the Federal Regional Court of the 1st Region (TRF-1) when issuing the criminal record certificate.

“The minister denied freedom based on these criminal records, citing that ‘the defendant has already been convicted of the crime of embezzlement’, and we had his negative certificate. When I went to see the decision link, we noticed the error in the criminal record and started working hard to correct it,” said Siebra.

The lawyer explained to the reporter that the TRF-1 itself had difficulty understanding what had happened, as the court was divided into two jurisdictions with the creation of the 6th region in 2021. In this division, some interference may have occurred that caused the processes to have some kind of error.

Carolina Siebra explained that, after many emails and consultations, a TRF-1 server managed to understand what happened and corrected the error. Thus, both the court and the TRF-6 issued the necessary certificates to forward a new request for granting the pastor’s parole to the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) last week.

The request was received by prosecutor Joaquim Cabral, who is part of Attorney General Paulo Gonet Branco’s team and who, says the lawyer, said he was “incredulous” at the error of justice. This Monday (29), the PGR gave a favorable opinion on the freedom of Jorge Luiz dos Santos and sent the report to Moraes, who must now decide whether or not to grant the benefit.

“We believe that there is no longer any obstacle to keeping the pastor in prison and that it won’t take long to reach a decision, since it was a very serious mistake to keep a person in prison under the name of another, and he doesn’t differ in any way from others who were granted parole,” said the lawyer.

Still according to Carolina, the pastor has remained firm in prison without being overcome by the difficulties and the error of justice. The real issue is the delicate health problem he faces and which requires surgery.

A PGR report released at the end of 2023 shows that, in total, 1,412 people were reported to the STF for involvement in the acts of January 8, 1,156 for allegedly inciting the demonstration and 248 for the execution. The data also shows 797 requests for freedom, of which 66 remain in prison out of more than 2,100 detainees.

When contacted, the STF informed that Moraes should only speak out in the case records.