US government refused to provide information without authorization from former advisor; Paulo Gonet also defended that Moraes contact the Ministry of Justice
The PGR (Attorney General’s Office) asked Filipe Martins, who was an advisor to former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), to authorize the United States government to consult his entries and exits in the country. The State Department (North American equivalent to Itamaraty) refused to provide information on the letter of STF (Supreme Federal Court) minister Alexandre de Moraes and without authorization from Martins.
Bolsonaro’s former advisor was arrested on February 8, 2024 in operation Tempus Veritatis and remains in detention. The arrest was authorized under the argument of the PF (Federal Police), accepted by Moraes, that Martins was on the run and there was a risk of him fleeing the country. When the arrest order was issued, however, the PF knew where to find him easily.
After the statement from the US body, Paulo Gonet, Attorney General of the Republic, defended that Moraes contact the Ministry of Justice and Public Security to begin the process of international cooperation. The opinion is dated April 18th.
In the request, Gonet says he is from “interest” from Filipe Martins the information from the US government and that, therefore, he should authorize the provision of the data. The PGR claims that possible responses may “strengthen” to the former advisor’s defense thesis.
Now, the opinion must be analyzed by Moraes in the coming days. Since February 8, Filipe Martins has been in the Pinhais Penal Medical Complex (PR), the same one that was used for prisoners in the Lava Jato operation.
In a note sent to Poder360the defense cited “deep perplexity” as in “illegal reversal of the burden of proof that has been practiced in the case, as has never been seen in Brazilian criminal proceedings” and stated that, “successively”confirmed Martins’ permanence in Brazilian territory in December 2022, joining “even official response from US Customs”. Here is the full note (PDF – 32 kB).
ORDER
Moraes responded to a request from the PGR and ordered, on April 1, that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mauro Vieira, request information from the US government about Martins’ entry and exit from Orlando, Florida, at the end of 2022.
In response to Itamaraty’s request, made under Moraes’ order, the US State Department reported that “could not share the information requested by this Court without the express consent of those interested”.
The STF minister also decided to accept, in the same request from the PGR, the request to access the images of the presidential delegation boarding on December 30, 2022 at the Brazilian Air Base.
In a letter dated April 4, the FAB (Brazilian Air Force) reported that there were no security cameras in the area where authorities boarded.
ARREST AND WEAK INDICATES
The “risk of flight” would have been based on the alleged trip to Florida on December 30, 2022, but this information was never proven by authorities in Brazil or the USA.
According to the Federal Police, Martins going with Bolsonaro to the USA could “indicate that he fled the country to avoid possible criminal liability”. The report is in the Moraes decision – the full document (PDF – 8 MB). Read below what is in the document, which raises doubts about the PF’s own statement (excerpts in bold marked by Poder360):
“FILIPE MARTINS’ name is also on the list of passengers who traveled aboard the presidential plane on 12/30/2022 heading to Orlando/USA. Nonetheless, there were no records of the former advisor’s departure from immigration control, which may indicate that he fled the country to avoid possible criminal liability. Whereas The location of the person being investigated is currently uncertainit is necessary to decree precautionary detention as a way of guaranteeing the application of criminal law and preventing the person under investigation from deliberately acting to destroy evidence capable of clarifying the circumstances of the facts investigated.”
The information that Filipe Martins had embarked for the USA, as noted, had not been conclusively verified – but the arrest had been requested anyway.
About “the location of the person being investigated” to be “uncertain”, the PF disregarded photos of Bolsonaro’s former advisor published on an open profile on the internet. Furthermore, when Martins was arrested, the PF knew where to look for him to carry out the arrest: in his girlfriend’s apartment in Ponta Grossa (PR), 117 km from Curitiba – therefore, her whereabouts were known. He is now at the Pinhais Penal Medical Complex (PR).
Image posted on Instagram by the wife of Ricardo Pereira, Martins’ lawyer. The post is from April 1, 2023 and shows Bolsonaro’s former advisor; smartphone data indicates that the image was taken on January 14, 2023 in the Carambeí region, about 140 km from Curitiba – the defense said that the former advisor went to Paraná at the end of 2022
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Source: https://www.poder360.com.br/justica/pgr-pede-que-filipe-martins-autorize-os-eua-consultarem-suas-viagens/
