The justifications for Cid’s new arrest – 03/26/2024 – Power

Breach of secrecy, obstruction of Justice and possible disregard for other precautionary measures may be behind the new arrest of Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, which occurred on Friday (22) after a hearing in which he denied having been coerced by the Federal Police to say what “didn’t happen” in your plea bargain agreement.

The statement took place after the leak of audios, published by Veja magazine, in which Cid claimed to have been coerced. During the hearing, Jair Bolsonaro’s (PL) former aide-de-camp assumed it was him in the conversation, denied possible pressure from the police and stated that the statements were made in a context of “outburst”.

The warrant that authorized the new arrest is confidential, but the STF (Supreme Federal Court) reported that the soldier’s detention occurred due to non-compliance with precautionary measures and obstruction of justice. The approval of the plea bargain is under analysis.

Members of the PF, in turn, claim that the military violated the collaboration confidentiality agreement with the aim of hindering the investigation that involves, among other possible crimes, an attempted coup d’état.

This would have been considered a failure to comply with a precautionary measure and made the soldier suspected of trying to obstruct justice.

Given this information, experts consulted by the Sheet comment on the legal bases that may have motivated the lieutenant colonel’s new arrest.

For Maurício Zanoide, professor of criminal procedure at USP, Cid broke a general rule of secrecy that regulates the award-winning collaboration institute, in addition to having committed a new crime with the leaked audios.

According to the expert, a general rule provided for in the law on criminal organizations (law 12,850/2013) provides that the employee must maintain the secrecy of the denunciation.

“The law requires that the employee cannot —apart from people already involved such as lawyers, judges, prosecutors— break confidentiality with anyone else, including family members”, says Zanoide.

Failure to comply with the general premise, says the expert, would justify imprisonment.

Furthermore, with the leaked audio, Cid would have incurred a new crime of impeding or embarrassing an investigation involving a criminal organization. Provided for in the first paragraph of article 2 of the law on criminal organizations, the penalty for the infraction is imprisonment for 3 to 8 years and a fine.

For the expert, the soldier’s situation was aggravated by the fact that he did not explain to the PF who he had spoken to in the case of the leaked conversation. “He is hiding information that could hinder the investigation,” he says.

According to Helena Lobo da Costa, professor of criminal law at USP, there is a legal basis for the new arrest based on the argument of non-compliance with a precautionary measure. The leaked audio may have led to the breach of specific agreements provided for in the collaboration, which is confidential.

The expert, however, states that she does not envisage obstruction of justice in the case, since there was no failed procedure due to Cid’s behavior.

“The act of speaking, in the private sphere, that he was pressured to say what he shouldn’t have will not hinder the investigation, especially when this has been denied.”

For Helena, the classification as obstruction of justice would be a very broad interpretation of the crime provided for in the law. “Obstruction needs to be related to specific acts of investigation,” she says.

Luísa Walter da Rosa, master in State law from UFPR (Federal University of Paraná) and author of books on criminal agreements and plea bargains, states that the main argument for Cid’s new arrest is probably non-compliance with precautionary measures.

The expert recalls that the revocation of the soldier’s previous preventive detention, released in September 2023, was subject to measures such as the prohibition of using social networks and communicating with other people being investigated.

“It may be that the leak of the audios was considered a failure to contact someone. So much so that, in addition to Cid’s new arrest, a search and seizure warrant was executed at his home”, he states.

“The Supreme Court is probably interested in knowing who he would have spoken to to understand the extent of the effects of this contact.”

The three experts claim that there is no legal conflict in the fact that Moraes ordered the arrest of Mauro Cid after the leak of the audios, which were also critical of the minister.

“Facts created after the case has already been defined are not enough to remove the judge. If that happened, people would choose who they would be judged against”, says Zanoide.