Fernando Morais: "tremendous judicial error"
The writer comments on the outcome of Criminal Action 470, reaffirming that the money "diverted" from public coffers belonged to Visanet (now Cielo) and was used for advertising; he also says that the convicted individuals were subjected to an additional punishment by Joaquim Barbosa: public humiliation.
247 - Fernando Morais, one of Brazil's greatest writers and journalists, gave an interview to former minister José Dirceu's blog, in which he expressed his views on Criminal Action 470. Read below:
Fernando, what's your analysis of the trial?
[Fernando Morais] I was always very pessimistic about how this process would end. Of all the people who were close to Zé Dirceu, Genoino, and others, I was always one of the most skeptical; I didn't believe it would end any other way. The way the process unfolded indicated that.
Now, what surprised me most in all of this is the overexposure to which the prisoners are subjected. The way they conduct the arrests, the transfers, seems to have a clear intention to expose them to public humiliation. The way they carry out these actions is nothing more than imposing an additional punishment on them to which they were not condemned.
At the height of the persecution he suffered at the hands of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union, Trotsky said that "the worst aggression against a person, against a citizen, is to expose them to humiliation, because it disarms the individual and attacks them in the essence of their dignity."
And even with Genoino's fragile health…
[Fernando Morais] Not to mention Genoino, about whom I don't want to, can't, and can't bring myself to speak yet… Anywhere in the world, a heart patient like him has the right to treatment, complete medical care, hospitalization, and a diet appropriate to his condition. And I read an interview with one of his daughters saying that he's eating sandwiches because they won't even let his family bring him food.
Zé Dirceu and the others involved in this case are victims of an aberrant, a tremendous miscarriage of justice. It is always risky to make political assessments in the heat of the moment, although this trial, from the beginning, has been eminently political. But, when the dust settles, when tempers cool down, Brazil will discover that we are facing a tremendous miscarriage of justice.
You acted in Raimundo Pereira's documentary "AP470 - the medieval trial".
[Fernando Morais] Yes, I helped journalist Raimundo Pereira with the research and production of the documentary “AP 470 – the medieval trial” (Click here to watch the video.There, with Raimundo's obsession with detail, with minutiae, with precision, the judicial error becomes absolutely clear. He proves and demonstrates exhaustively that the public money in this story, the R$ 74 million from Visanet, which constitutes the largest amount that, they say, was used in the mensalão scandal, was actually used to pay for normal advertising and sponsorships for the card that was called Visa and is now Cielo.
In this case, most of it went towards advertising and sponsorship payments for the women's volleyball team, the tennis player Guga… And a good portion of that money went to reward Banco do Brasil managers with bonuses and prizes because, like any other bank, Banco do Brasil set sales quotas for its managers and rewarded them when they reached those quotas.
The disparity in sentences is another striking fact. For example, Ramon Hollerbach, former partner of Marcos Valério, was sentenced to 29 years, 7 months, and 20 days in prison. Goalkeeper Bruno, from Flamengo, who ordered the murder of his girlfriend, her dismemberment, and the distribution of her remains to dogs, was sentenced to 22 years in prison. This gives a good indication of what justice is like in Brazil.