The (Superior Military Court) unanimously decided to reverse the decision of a judge of first instance and order the receipt of the complaint against the reserve colonel.
Pierroti was accused by the Military Public Ministry for doing things to the Army leadership. He became a defendant for the military crimes of undue criticism and offense to .
The colonel was called to give interviews to talk about the book, the corporation and several of its officers – especially the former vice president and now senator (Republicanos-RS) – for purchasing million-dollar equipment.
In interviews, Pierrotti criticized the Army’s role in the coup plot and said that the coup d’état led by the former president (PL) did not progress due to “the ineptitude of the military itself”.
“I see the attitude of the Army commander, the Army High Command, as an opportunistic attitude much more than what is being sold as legalistic”, said the colonel in one of the comments highlighted in the complaint.
He also criticized the STM for spending too much money and producing too little and said the Army had become a “politicized unit” in recent years.
The Military Public Prosecutor’s Office concluded that Pierrotti should answer for both crimes because he “publicly criticized the act of a hierarchical superior, […] in addition to spreading facts that he knows are untrue, offending the dignity and undermining the credit of the Armed Forces, as well as the trust they deserve from the public”.
In the first instance, the judge responsible for analyzing the case decided to deny the complaint and not even open the case against Pierrotti. He justified that the colonel made the statements when he was in reserve, without the “disciplinary restrictions of active military personnel.”
“If the actions do not reach the material status of a crime, the legal possibility of the demand for the exercise of Military Criminal Action becomes unfeasible, it is necessary not to receive the exordial”, he said.
The judge used as a basis for his decision the jurisprudence of the STF (Supreme Federal Court) that allows the “regular exercise of the right to criticism, which constitutes a direct emanation of the constitutional freedom to express one’s thoughts.”
The decision of the Superior Military Court was based on an appeal presented by the Military Public Ministry. The first instance judge’s decision was unanimously opposed in the STM, by 14 votes to zero. The minister did not vote.
“Considering that the understanding of the Superior Military Court contradicted the consolidated jurisprudence of the Federal Supreme Court on the subject — as recognized even in the opinion that the Deputy Attorney General for Military Justice presented —, we will soon file a Habeas Corpus with the objective of reestablishing the decision that had outright rejected the accusation formulated against Colonel Rubens Pierrotti”, said lawyer André Perecmanis to Sheet.
The uses a technique known as “roman à clef” (“romance with key”, in the literal translation from French), an apparently fictional work that narrates real stories changing only the characters’ names.
Pierrotti used the resource to, in more than 500 pages, detail complaints against the Army and some officers, especially the former vice president and now senator (-RS).
The author, who now works as a lawyer, accuses former colleagues in uniform of condoning irregularities in the purchase of a fire support simulator from the Spanish company Tecnobit, which cost the public coffers €13.98 million (around R$32 million when the contract was signed in 2010, almost R$83 million at current exchange rates).
The Army and Mourão defend the deal and argue that it brought savings to the corporation. The Military Public Ministry archived the complaints. Although the technical area of the (Federal Audit Court), in an investigation lasting more than three years, pointed out several irregularities in the process, the court’s plenary closed the case in 2021.
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