Minister Ricardo Lewandowski, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), determined the locking and closure of three actions of the extinct Lava Jato and Operation Zelotes against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The investigations, which were suspended, concerned donations by the construction company Odebrecht to the Lula Institute, the purchase of land for the institute and alleged irregularities in the purchase of Swedish fighter jets for the Air Force during the government of former President Dilma Rousseff.
The first two investigations had been suspended since September 2021 by order of the STF. The investigation into Lula’s alleged influence peddling in the acquisition of the F-39 Gripen fighters had been suspended in March last year. The lawsuits, which were pending in the Federal Court in Brasilia, were closed.
In the decision, Lewandowski indicated that the evidence presented in the actions is illegal. According to him, there is no reason for the processes to continue to be processed. In the text, he classified the evidence as “ridden with incurable vices and clearly devoid of minimal evidentiary ballast”.
The definitive interruption of the investigations had been requested by Lula’s defense in the process of annulment of the evidence contained in the leniency agreement between Odebrecht and the task force of Lava Jato prosecutors at the Federal Public Ministry. The requests were based on material seized by the Federal Police’s Operation Spoofing, which arrested a group of hackers who invaded cell phones of Lava Jato judges and prosecutors.
“Examined with verticality the factual-legal mosaic described in detail above, I do not conceive the existence of reckless denunciations, without the minimum of sound probative elements [salutares], and also known to be devoid of legitimate correlation between them and the pre-procedural phase. These are, in fact, imputations based on contaminated evidence, which were produced, held in custody and used in an illicit and illegitimate manner, which demonstrates the absence of just cause for its continuation”, wrote Lewandowski in the decision.
