Dirceu says he was 'incriminated' in Lava Jato to target Lula and asks the STF to suspect Moro

Former minister José Dirceu, who commanded the Civil House in President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's (PT) first term, piggybacked on a PT case in the Federal Supreme Court (STF) to try to annul two convictions in Operation Lava Jato.

The former minister's defense asks the STF to recognize that, just as in Lula's case, former judge Sergio Moro, now a senator, was also biased in condemning him in the investigation.

The objective is to annul sentences of up to 32 years in prison for the crimes of passive corruption, criminal organization and money laundering.

In 2021, the ministers of the Federal Supreme Court decided that Sergio Moro was not impartial when conducting investigations and judging criminal actions that affected Lula. The actions of the former Lava Jato judge, an icon of the operation, were considered irregular, which led to the annulment of a series of decisions and sentences against the president. The decision only applied to cases involving the PT member.

Among the points raised by the ministers to question Moro's conduct were the order for Lula to be coerced to be interrogated by the Federal Police in the files of Operation Alethea, the 24th phase of Lava Jato; the wiretap on the law firm of Cristiano Zanin, who is defending the former president; the obstruction of compliance with the decision, taken on judicial duty by the judge of the Federal Regional Court of the 4th Region, Rogério Favreto, who ordered the PT member to be released in July 2018, when he was imprisoned in Curitiba; the removal of the confidentiality of excerpts from former minister Antonio Palocci's plea bargain on the eve of the 2018 elections; the leak of the conversation between Lula and former president Dilma Rousseff (PT), who appointed him as chief minister of the Civil House; assuming the position of Minister of Justice and Public Security in the Jair Bolsonaro government and becoming a managing partner at the consultancy Alvarez & Marsal, which provides services to companies convicted in Operation Lava Jato.

Lawyer Roberto Podval and his team, who defend José Dirceu, argue that this whole “strategem” also affected the former minister. He spent two years in pre-trial detention in Lava Jato.

The defense claims that the investigation and arrest of Dirceu were part of a “project” by the Curitiba task force, in alleged “collusion” with Moro, to target Lula. “This was a step that must necessarily be overcome in order to reach the then former president”, says the request sent to the STF. The lawyers claim that the former judge had a “political and personal project” that included the “bankruptcy” of the PT.

The document cites excerpts from the former minister's accusations and convictions used to support decisions against Lula. As Minister of the Civil House, José Dirceu was responsible for managing government appointments, including at Petrobras, a major target of Lava Jato investigations. “Lula’s involvement in the accusations necessarily included the incrimination of the applicant (Dirceu).”

The defense recalls that the former minister's name appears in the controversial PowerPoint created by former public prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol, who was coordinator of the task force in Curitiba, to present the complaint against Lula in the triplex case.

“As the purpose of the accusations drawn up by the task force and the judgments handed down by the then judge Sergio Moro, in relation to José Dirceu, were, admittedly, to foment and strengthen the subsequent imputations directed at Lula – in accordance with the political-partisan project of the prosecutors and the magistrate – the suspicion of the aforementioned federal judge, recognized in these records, must be extended to the applicant, determining the annulment of the criminal proceedings to which he is currently responding”, the lawyers ask.

The request was addressed to Minister Gilmar Mendes, dean of the STF, who is an outspoken critic of Lava Jato's methods. It was he who extended Moro's suspicion, initially applied to the triplex case, to the other cases opened against Lula in the wake of the operation.