Joesley's defense team is 'absolutely perplexed' by Janot.

247 - Lawyer Antônio Carlos de Almeida, known as Kakay, said that, as a representative of businessman Joesley Batista, he is "absolutely perplexed" by the interview given by former Attorney General Rodrigo Janot to Correio Braziliense. 

"This interview only demonstrates and reinforces the melancholic way in which the former Attorney General bids farewell to the highest position in the Public Prosecutor's Office, highlighting internal details, exposing in a strange and quite bad way for Brazilian society how clearly divided the Public Prosecutor's Office is," says Kakay. 

The full text of the statement follows below:

Joesley Batista's defense team is absolutely perplexed by the interview given today in the important newspaper Correio Braziliense by Dr. Rodrigo Janot. In the interview, clearly out of character for someone who held such an important position, Dr. Rodrigo Janot violently attacks Joesley in a disloyal and disproportionate manner, once again.

It is important to emphasize that Joesley handled his plea bargain with the Attorney General's Office, an act of extreme importance and gravity, trusting in the good faith of the public official and head of the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office. Dr. Janot considered the JBS plea bargain to be the most effective and complete among so many others, so much so that the directors were granted unprecedented full immunity. It was the only plea bargain, out of dozens carried out, that resulted in absolute immunity. During these negotiations, the informants evidently believed they were dealing with the State, represented by the learned Attorney General of the Republic.

It turns out that the criticism of the Attorney General, after the disclosure of the terms and the immunity granted, was quite serious and harsh from the entire Brazilian press, which highlighted, above all, the impossibility of granting such a benefit. From the defense's point of view, Dr. Rodrigo Janot, in a disloyal, incorrect, and unjust manner, suddenly decided to rescind the plea bargain agreement and indict the informants, with the consequent removal of the immunity granted, which was perhaps what bothered the Attorney General the most.

This interview only demonstrates and reinforces the melancholic way in which the former Attorney General bids farewell to the highest position in the Public Prosecutor's Office, highlighting internal details and exposing, in a strange and quite damaging way for Brazilian society, how clearly divided the Public Prosecutor's Office is. The Prosecutor, who until three months ago felt like a national hero, now has to acknowledge that he wasn't even invited to the inauguration of the current Attorney General. This exposure of the Public Prosecutor's Office is extremely negative, as it generates insecurity for all those who trust and expect the body to remain independent and absolutely impartial.

Joesley does not wish to comment further on the aggressiveness of Dr. Rodrigo Janot; however, we want to emphasize what is, at the moment, most important to us: the informants were still within the deadline to deliver any and all documentation relating to the collaboration, authorized by Minister Fachin himself, and they fulfilled absolutely everything that was their responsibility to fulfill. From that point on, with the approval of the plea bargain, the informant has the subjective right to see what was promised to him effectively fulfilled.

I emphasize that I was neither a lawyer nor did I participate in the JBS collaboration, but I stress that this discussion is fundamental to the stability of the plea bargaining institution, given that it is a new institution in criminal procedure, which deserves all kinds of reflection and due criticism and observations. I affirm that I am in favor of the institution, but I am critical of the excesses committed in its application. This sad episode highlights this very intensely.

In fact, we are witnessing the demoralization of plea bargaining and creating instability for all those who were informants. I have been a staunch critic of excesses for a long time, and now I am working, first and foremost, to secure the freedom of the JBS collaborators and, subsequently, to uphold their rights, with the conviction that if they fulfilled what they agreed to (and effectively did fulfill) with the Public Prosecutor's Office, their agreement cannot be rescinded by the will and authoritarianism of the former Attorney General, solely due to criticism regarding the immunity granted to them.

It is also important to emphasize that Dr. Janot did, in fact, criminalize politics. Above all, by dividing, for example, the investigation into four major inquiries targeting large parties of the Republic, such as the PMDB in the Chamber of Deputies, the PMDB in the Senate, the PP, and the PT. By acting in this way, he openly referred to these parties, historically important and recognized as pillars of redemocratization and the Brazilian representative republican system, as if they were a criminal organization, without concerning himself with the obvious: describing the alleged crimes committed and explicitly detailing the necessary individualization of the supposed conduct of the parliamentarians who were improperly attacked.

This criminalization of politics is absolutely harmful to the Democratic Rule of Law. Therefore, the Attorney General's Office, with the importance it has – including because it is the exclusive competence of the Attorney General to present the indictment, since the Supreme Federal Court does not act without provocation (and note that, on this point, the Attorney General is more important than a Supreme Court Justice, because it is up to him to decide when to dismiss and when to indict) – can do a lot, but it cannot do everything.

The truth is that no single power can do everything; such balance is essential to the tripartite system and the logic of checks and balances that governs the republic. Therefore, the Public Prosecutor's Office cannot simply call a party a criminal organization and irresponsibly spread such falsehoods to the press as truth. The Public Prosecutor's Office has the right to indict whomever it deems necessary, but with due respect to the political parties that are the foundation of representative democracy.

Unfortunately, the degree of destabilization of the former prosecutor is worrying, demonstrating, among other things, his break, perhaps personal, and the rupture of his group with the current group that is taking over the prosecutor's office. It is up to us, lawyers and citizens, to calmly await the return of the transparency, dedication, and seriousness that has always been the hallmark of the great Public Prosecutor's Office of the time of Minister Sepúlveda Pertence, for example. We want to emphasize the difficulty of dealing with this level of animosity and we hope that the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office will honor its tradition, honor its commitments, in the name of legal certainty and the perpetuation of the democratic rule of law.

KAKAY