Sergio Moro’s testimony is rescheduled for December 7th

The former judge of Operation Lava-Jato and senator Sergio Moro (União-PR) is expected to give testimony on December 7th in the process that could lead to the revocation of his mandate as senator of the Republic, after the Regional Electoral Court of Paraná responded to the defense’s request and postponed the date, initially scheduled for this Thursday (16)

Moro is accused of abuse of economic and political power, in addition to misuse of the media in the 2022 electoral campaign. The action was proposed by PL, former president Jair Bolsonaro and the Brazilian Federation of Hope (PT, PCdoB and PV ).

In the request made to the Paraná TRE in October, Moro’s defense argued that Podemos’s national directory and the National Labor Foundation sent more than a thousand pages of documents with Moro’s expenses outside the established deadline due to “technical failure” , and the size of the collection would impact the conduct of depositions.

Moro’s defense also alleged that Podemos and the Foundation “violated the principles of cooperation, loyalty and procedural good faith by promoting the untimely gathering of documents that they already had.” The lawyers also asked that the new documents be removed from the lawsuit.

“It is curious to gather more than a thousand pages — more than a month late and after a decision was made that designated witness hearings — containing contracts, invoices, bank transactions, reports, vouchers and the like on the eve of the taking of statements”, wrote the defense of the União Brasil senator.

The rapporteur of the action, judge Dartagnan Serpa Sá, accepted the request for postponement, justifying that sending the documents after the appointment of the hearings could cause harm to the exercise of broad defense by the parties. “In this way, so that all parties can analyze the documentation in a timely manner before witnesses, it is appropriate to reschedule the hearings”, said the judge, but has not yet decided whether he will discard the more than a thousand pages added to the process by the parties .

“Although the deadline granted was not observed by the officers in question and the untimely joining effectively had the power to disrupt the procedural progress, even if in a generic way, at the first opportunity, the occurrence of a “technical failure” was justified. Therefore, I leave the request to excavate the documents to be considered, in due course, after the necessary analysis of their content”, wrote the rapporteur.

Substitutes will also give testimony

In addition to Moro, his two alternates in the Senate were called to testify on December 7th: Luís Felipe Cunha and Ricardo Augusto Guerra. The testimony must take place via videoconference.

Testimonies of defense and prosecution witnesses were rescheduled for November 29th, November 30th and December 1st. The defense of the former Lava-Jato judge appointed three witnesses to try to save him from losing his mandate: the impeached federal deputy Deltan Dallagnol, Sandra Salvadori, responsible for research mentioned in the petition; and Murilo Hidalgo, director of Paraná Pesquisas. The three will be heard on December 1st.