Petition to Investigate Carlos Bolsonaro in Marielle Franco Case Denied by STF

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Alexandre de Moraes, Federal Supreme Court (STF) Justice, on Tuesday, December 17th, dismissed two claims requesting that President Jair Bolsonaro and his son Carlos Bolsonaro be investigated in the case of the death of Marielle Franco, a city councilor from Rio de Janeiro.

The claim was brought before the STF last month by Workers Party (PT) deputies and the Brazilian Press Association (ABI), after a gatekeeper of the Vivendas da Barra condominium, where Bolsonaro and Carlos have their homes, mentioned the president’s name in a statement to Rio’s Civil Police.

They pointed to suspicion of the crime of obstruction of justice when the president publicly declared that he had taken, through his son, the recordings from the condo’s lobby, and Carlos published on Twitter a video containing the audios from the call recording system.

In Bolsonaro’s case, the PT also pointed out a potential crime of responsibility, grounds for impeachment. The prosecutor general, Augusto Aras, spoke out against the opening of a criminal investigation.

“The complainant [ABI and PT] failed to provide minimal evidence of the occurrence of a criminal offense. The reason for this is that the audio files it alludes to have long been under the custody of the relevant authorities – the Prosecutor’s Office and the police authority – and technical analysis of their content has been carried out even before the facts were reported,” said the prosecutor-general.

Based on this demonstration, Moraes ordered the dismissal of the claim. “The principle of the constitutional right of public criminal action in the Brazilian legal system only allows the opening of criminal proceedings by a denunciation of the Prosecutor’s Office,” wrote the justice.

“Thus, since the Prosecutor’s Office stated it did not accede to the claim, notably due to the absence of minimal evidence of any criminal offense, I hereby order the dismissal of this criminal claim.”

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