Haddad says Derrite doesn’t understand “intelligence against organized crime”

The Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, criticized this Wednesday the rapporteur of the Antifaction project, Guilherme Derrite (PP-SP), who according to him, does not really understand “intelligence and investigation” of organized crime. Haddad said he did not understand the “hassle” in voting on the text on the subject.

— We demonstrated integration to stifle organized crime two, three months ago. You are going to lose this due to the haste of a rapporteur who, with all due respect, is not exactly a person who understands intelligence and investigation, is not a person versed in investigation and intelligence — said Haddad.

The minister criticized the lack of dialogue from the rapporteur, who is a licensed Public Security Secretary of the São Paulo government. According to him, the versions presented weaken the role of the Federal Police (PF) and Federal Revenue in combating organized crime.

— I don’t understand this rush to vote on the law without a discussion with the government. They are state bodies, the PF belongs to the country, the Revenue is not a government body either, they are state bodies, and weakening them doesn’t make any sense.

Haddad met with the general director of the PF, Andrei Rodrigues, this Wednesday morning, at the Ministry of Finance. According to him, the meeting was to discuss the integration of the agency’s work with the Federal Revenue Service.

— We are fine-tuning these procedures, the exchange of information between the two bodies.

Gleisi calls for changes

Earlier, the minister of the Secretariat of Institutional Relations (SRI), Gleisi Hoffmann, had said that there are still four points of the Antifaction project that need to be suppressed by the rapporteur, deputy Guilherme Derrite (PP-SP). In the government’s view, these are “non-negotiable” points and if they are not removed, they will “disfigure” the initial project, proposed by the Ministry of Justice. Because of this, Palácio do Planalto is working to postpone the vote on Derrite’s text.

The problematic items in the government’s view deal with overlapping laws; the risk of loss of resources by the Federal Police; the criminal classification of “criminal faction”; and the confiscation of assets from criminal organizations only at the end of the judicial process. These points were listed in a meeting between the Secretariat of Institutional Relations, the Ministry of Justice and the Civil House, which took place this Wednesday morning. The group discussed the opinion presented on Tuesday night by the licensed Security Secretary of São Paulo.

Earlier, Derrite stated that he was concerned about creating a text that would not be challenged by the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and admitted that he could make further changes to the text. He has already presented three different versions of his report.

Gleisi stated that the Ministry of Justice continues to carry out a more detailed assessment of the points and that the group focused on debating what is “structuring” for the project:

— We focused on what is structuring and that can actually make the law completely ineffective, which are these points — said Gleisi — Of course, other points are points that we will try to talk about, adjust, but these I would say are practically non-negotiable points, because they disfigure the project — he said.

Given this scenario, the minister argues that the vote on the text be postponed so that changes can be made.

— I talked to our government leaders so they could talk to the president of Motta, tell the House management if he is going to vote today. If he doesn’t vote, I want to make an appointment with him so we can talk. Due to the complexity of the matter, it would be important to have more time to discuss. And round all points — added Gleisi.

Four points of the project that the government wants to remove from the text:

1. Overlapping laws: With Derrite’s new opinion, a new law would be created that deals with criminal organizations, but without changing the previous one. An error in legislative technique was detected by the Ministry of Justice, with the generation of an overlap. Lawyers for criminals would, in the view of government technicians, use the previous law in this case, which provides for milder punishments. The failure is considered the result of haste in voting on the text.
2. Risk of loss of resources by the PF: The Ministry of Justice points out that the new opinion provides for a generic allocation of resources arising from the seizure of assets from drug traffickers and members of criminal organizations to state or district Public Security funds. The understanding is that in cases where the investigation, seizure and trial take place at the federal level, the amounts should be reverted to the Fund for the Equipment and Operationalization of the Federal Police’s Core Activities (Funapol) and the National Penitentiary Fund (Funpen). Therefore, the department considers that this point in the new opinion is unconstitutional and violates federal legislation. For technicians at the Ministry of Justice, failure to foresee the allocation of resources to federal funds could lead to a decapitalization of these funds and, in the end, leave the Federal Police and federal prisons with less money.
3. Criminal classification of “criminal faction”: The original project proposes the creation of the criminal type of “criminal faction” to differentiate between criminal organization and faction. In the government’s view, the criminal faction is a more elaborate organization, with territorial, economic dominance, interstate and transnational operations. The objective is to criminalize factions and militias, which is considered the backbone of the project. Derrite suppressed this point and instituted the crime of “structured social domain”, which provides for a total of 11 types of criminal conduct. These include: the use of violence to threaten the population with the aim of exercising control over communities; the restriction, even if temporarily, of the free movement of people, goods and services, public or private, without legitimate motivation recognized by the legal system; promote attacks, with violence or serious threat, against prison institutions. The government considers the “criminal faction” classification to be more appropriate to reality and easier to communicate to the population.
4. Confiscation of assets: The government concluded that Derrite’s new opinion establishes that the assets of members of criminal organizations can only be seized at the end of the legal action. In the original proposal, this confiscation could occur at the opening of the investigation with the aim of financially stifling the gangs. “We put in the project that these factions lose their assets from the moment the investigation begins. In the report this will only happen after the conviction has become final and you run the risk of not capturing these assets”, explains Gleisi.

Members of the Ministry of Justice’s technical team working on a detailed analysis of the third version of Derrite’s text came to the conclusion that the best strategy is to postpone the vote on the text:

— There is no condition for the project to be voted on as it is. You could end up collapsing the criminal and prison system, which will benefit organized crime — said the department’s National Secretary for Legislative Affairs, Marivaldo Pereira.

The department’s team defends the resumption of the original text, which increased the penalty for faction leaders and eased it for those who had good records and did not hold a leadership role. With the current text, the sentence of 20 to 40 years in prison applies to any member of the group, without mitigating factors.

In addition to the higher penalties, the project provides that suspects arrested under these new criminal types will not have the right to “amnesty, pardon, pardon, bail and conditional release” – which tends to increase the prison population.