Former President Fernando Collor de Mello was arrested on Friday morning (25) in Maceió (AL), after Minister Alexandre de Moraes of the Supreme Court (STF), against his conviction at 8 years and 10 months in prison, in closed regime, for corruption and money laundering under Operation Lava Jato.
According to the lawyers, Collor would be delivered voluntarily in Brasilia, but was arrested before that. He is in custody at the Federal Police Superintendence in Alagoas.
Virtual Plenary Session
Moraes’s decision was made on Thursday night (24) and should be endorsed by the STF plenary later this Friday, in a virtual session from 11am to 11:59 pm. The president of the Court, Luís Roberto Barroso, marked the vote after the request of Moraes, but the beginning of the sentence does not depend on the result, according to consolidated jurisprudence in the Supreme.
Accusations and Condemnation
Collor was convicted in 2023 for receiving R $ 20 million in bribes to enable BR Distribuidora contracts – then Petrobras’ subsidiary – with UTC Engenharia, between 2010 and 2014. In return, he would have acting to keep directors politically indicated in the state.
Businessmen Luis Pereira Duarte de Amorim were also convicted in the process, who will comply with restrictive penalties of law, and Pedro Paulo Bergamaschi de Leoni Ramos, sentenced to 4 years and 1 month in semi -open regime.
The criminal action was based on the award -winning Lava Jato declines, including that of the moneymaker Alberto Youssef, one of the first whistleblowers of the operation.
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Rejected resources
The case was tried by the Supreme Court because Collor was a senator at the time of the complaint, presented by the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) in 2015. The defense appealed several times, questioning the dosimetry of the penalty and alleging divergences between the votes of the ministers.
In this Thursday’s decision, Moraes considered the infringing embargoes as delayes. According to him, there were not enough votes for acquittal, a necessary condition for this type of appeal. The defense, in turn, claimed that the debate on the penalty should be resolved in plenary, and said he had received the decision “with surprise and concern.”
Collor and Politics
At 75, Collor becomes the third former president to be arrested since redemocratization, alongside Michel Temer and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. From one of the most traditional families of Alagoas policy, he was elected president in 1989 in the first post-dictatorship direct elections.
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In 1992, Collor resigned from the presidency during the impeachment process, which was eventually approved by the Senate, with the revocation of his political rights for eight years. He returned to public life as a senator by Alagoas and held mandates until 2023.
