New Lava-Jato Leak: While Mocking Lula’s Testimony, Moro was Instructing the Prosecution

By Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Former federal judge and current Justice Minister Sérgio Moro’s conduct in the trial of former President Lula gained new queries with further leaks reported by The Intercept Brasil, on Friday night, June 14th.

The new fact: while presiding over the trial, Moro mocked the testimony by defendant Lula in a private chat and, simultaneously, urged Lava Jato to file an official note against the former president’s defense. The proposal was accepted.

In an excerpt from the dialogue between Moro and then prosecutor Carlos Fernando dos Santos Lima, the former judge mentioned what he termed the “little performance” of Lula’s defense, following the former president’s testimony in the case of the Guarujá triplex.

According to the website, the incident occurred on May 10th, 2017, when Moro was already presiding in the case. At 10:04 PM, the former judge wrote to Santos Lima: “What did you think?” in reference to Lula’s testimony in the case, an event of great resonance at the time.

The prosecutor allegedly said he “thought it was good”, and minutes later Moro suggested: “Maybe you should file a note tomorrow clarifying the contradictions in the statement against the rest of the evidence or to his previous testimony / Because the defense has already made its little performance,” Santos Lima allegedly readily accepted the suggestion and said that he would speak with “the staff”.

The Intercept Brasil’s report points to a purported discrepancy in Moro’s speech during Lula’s trial. If, before the hearing, he was mocking the defense tactics and suggesting notes to the prosecution, when standing before Lula, he said that he had no personal differences with the former president and made it clear that “those bringing charges, in this case, is the Federal Public Prosecutor, not the judge.”

Sought by The Intercept, the minister’s staff said on Friday that Sérgio Moro would not comment on “alleged messages from public officials collected as a result of a criminal invasion by hackers.” This positioning also considers that content may have been tampered with. The Federal Public Prosecutor of Paraná did not respond.

Today, the Minister of Justice confirmed that he exchanged information with prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol and classified the deed as “careless”.