In addition to having positioned themselves to maintain the conviction of (PL), the ministers and , of the (Supreme Federal Court), also voted this Friday (7) to reject the appeals of the former minister and five others convicted of participating in .
Moraes’ position was presented at the beginning of the virtual trial on the resources of the former president’s allies who led actions for the failed 2022 coup d’état.
Ministers and . left the First Panel of the STF and .
The appeals will be judged starting this Friday (former head of the Navy), Walter Braga Netto (former Minister of Defense), (former Minister of Defense), (former director of Abin and federal deputy), (former minister of the GSI) and (former minister of Justice).
Bolsonaro also has his appeal analyzed by the First Panel of the Supreme Court. Moraes voted to overturn the appeal and maintain the former president’s sentence of 27 years and three months in prison.
In the vote on Braga Netto, Moraes refuted the eight points raised by the general’s defense and denied any obscurity or contradiction in the STF’s decision that resulted in the former minister’s sentence to 26 years in prison.
“There is no need to talk about any contradiction. The sentencing ruling, including the chapter on the dosimetry of the sentence, presents reasoning that is absolutely consistent with the evidence in the case”, said Moraes in the vote.
The minister also denied the arguments presented by Augusto Heleno’s defense, saying that the general recycled in his appeal issues already debated in the trial over the coup plot. The main argument of the former minister’s lawyers is the lack of evidence for conviction.
“The embargoed ruling took into consideration several elements of evidence to support the sentencing decision, concluding that there was a robust body of evidence capable of proving the materiality and authorship of the crimes for which the defendant, now under embargo, was convicted”, stated the minister.
Moraes used the same arguments to reject the embargoes of the other convicts from the central core of the coup plot.
The trial that begins this Friday is restricted to the motion for clarification — a type of appeal in which the defenses point out obscurity, inaccuracy, contradiction or omission in the Supreme Court’s decision.
This type of embargo does not change the outcome of the trial —conviction or acquittal—, but it can raise questions about the sentence and even reduce the size of the defendants’ sentences.
The defendants’ defenses still intend to present infringing embargoes, an appeal that could re-discuss issues of merit that led to the defendants’ conviction. The deadline for filing these embargoes is 15 days after the publication of the ruling, but the period was suspended pending the judgment of the first appeals.
The understanding in the Supreme Court, however, is that infringing embargoes can only be received and discussed when there are two votes in favor of the defendant in the collegiate body. As this is not the case with Bolsonaro and the other defendants, Moraes can reject the appeals individually, without hearing his colleagues.
In the appeal sent to the STF, Braga Netto’s defense once again raised the thesis of suspicion of Minister Alexandre de Moraes, questioned his impartiality in judging the case and highlighted that the process’s processing time was short to analyze the volume of almost 80 TB of documents sent as evidence.
The other lawyers also reinforced arguments already overturned by the Supreme Court, in an attempt to reduce the sentences of those convicted. The only one who did not appeal the decision was Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, who maintained his award-winning collaboration agreement.
The appeals phase is the last in the Supreme Court before the process ends. It is after the rejection of all embargoes that Alexandre de Moraes must determine the beginning of the sentence for those convicted.
Of the eight convicted of the coup plot, six are military personnel. The majority must be held in Army and Navy barracks spread across Brasília and Rio de Janeiro. The exception must be former president Jair Bolsonaro, a retired captain, who tends to serve his sentence in the Papuda Penitentiary Complex or under house arrest.
