Moraes votes to make 100 defendants denounced for acts of January 8

Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), opened in the early hours of this Tuesday (18) the trial in a virtual plenary session of the first 100 complaints filed by the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) against people allegedly involved in the acts of 8 January that culminated in the invasion and depredation of the headquarters of the Three Powers in Brasília.

In the two surveys with the first defendants, with 50 involved each classified as executors (4921) and masterminds (4922), Moraes – who is also the rapporteur – claims to be in favor of making them defendants for the crimes of trying to abolish, with serious threat or violence, the Democratic State of Law; coup d’etat; armed criminal association; damage qualified by violence and serious threat, with the use of a flammable substance, against the assets of the Union.

Those denounced in this phase were arrested the day after the acts, in the camp set up in front of the Army Headquarters, in Brasília, and are still being held in the penitentiary system of the Federal District. In all, the PGR has already presented 1,390 formal accusations in the investigations, 239 of which are related to the core of executors, 1,150 in the core of initiators and one in the core that investigates the alleged omission of public authorities in the episode.

Throughout the vote, Moraes discusses the competence of the STF to judge the accusations offered by the PGR both due to the nature of the acts, of inciting “crimes that attack the Democratic State of Law”, as well as the involvement of “holders of prerogatives of jurisdiction ”, such as federal deputies Clarissa Tércio (PP-ES), André Fernandes (PL-CE), Sílvia Waiãpi (PL-AP), Coronel Fernanda (PL-MT) and Cabo Gilberto Silva (PL-PB).

According to the minister, the defendants would have been motivated to commit the crimes mentioned in “actions by imitation or suggestion, which is sufficient for the existence of a subjective bond, even if they do not know each other”.

“The Public Prosecutor’s Office even points out that all ‘acted in conjunction with people, united by the subjective bond for carrying out the common work, and should be strictly held responsible for their acts in equal measures’”, he says in the vote.

Link to “fake news survey”

Moraes also cites the connection between the inquiries related to the acts of January 8 with two others that are already being processed by the STF and investigate the so-called “fake news” and “the practice of various criminal offenses by digital militias that attack the Democratic State of Law ”. The inquiries, he says, involve Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ) and federal deputies Otoni de Paula (MDB-RJ), Cabo Júnio do Amaral (PL-MG), Carla Zambelli (PL-SP), Bia Kicis (PL -DF), Eduardo Bolsonaro (PL-SP), Filipe Barros (PL-PR), Luiz Phillipe Orleans e Bragança (PL-SP), Guiga Peixoto (PSC-SC) and Eliéser Girão (PL-RN).

According to the minister, the decision to make the defendants defendants is still justifiable due to the “existence of a minimum evidentiary support that evidences the materiality of the crime and the presence of reasonable indications of authorship, not being present the hypotheses of rejection or summary acquittal”. ”.

Moraes rejected the appeals filed by the defenses of those cited who questioned the participation and the crimes indicated in the time interval between the closing of the 2022 elections and January 9.

“Conducts and manifestations that have the clear purpose of controlling or even annihilating the strength of critical thinking, indispensable to the democratic regime, are unconstitutional, as well as those that intend to destroy it, together with its republican institutions, preaching violence, arbitrariness, disrespect for the Separation of Powers and fundamental rights, in short, pleading for tyranny, arbitrariness, violence and the breach of republican principles, as verified by the criminal manifestations now imputed to the accused”, quotes the minister in the vote.

There are also two more investigations under way at the STF regarding the acts of January 8, involving the alleged financiers (4920) and State authorities who would have been responsible “by improper omission” (4923), according to Moraes.

The accusations against these 100 defendants will be analyzed in the virtual plenary, in which ministers enter their votes in an electronic system, until April 24. This is the first judgment after the complaints presented to the Court by the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), and the expectation is that the other Justices of the Court will follow Moraes’ vote.

It is also possible that one of the justices will vote to take the judgment to the plenary of the STF.

If the complaints are accepted, the accused become defendants, and the process will be initiated. In these cases, material evidence and testimony from defense and prosecution witnesses will be collected. Afterwards, the court will still have to decide whether to condemn or acquit whoever is prosecuted, a measure that does not have a specific deadline to occur.