Appeals by Serra's lawyers in Switzerland blocked the release of suspicious bank statements from the former governor for two years.
The Swiss Federal Prosecutor's Office has forwarded hundreds of pages of bank transaction records to Brazil, allowing investigations into Serra's suspicious financial activities to advance. The transfer of these documents had been blocked since early 2018 by actions taken by Serra's lawyers.
247 - In early 2019, Swiss authorities allowed Brazilian prosecutors to receive bank statements detailing suspicious campaign financing transactions. former governor José Serra - These documents provide much of the basis for this Friday's (3) operation against the Serra scheme. For two years, the sending of the statements was blocked by the actions of Serra's lawyers and his operators.
The last appeal filed by Serra's defense was rejected by the country's Federal Court on January 18th of last year. This information comes from the portal. UOL
Following the decision, the Swiss Federal Prosecutor's Office sent hundreds of pages of bank transaction records to Brazil, allowing the investigations to move forward. The process, which should have been quick, took almost two years to conclude, due to several attempts by Serra's lawyers to prevent the information from reaching Brazilian prosecutors, the report adds.
In one of the attempts, the lawyers from Serra They argued that the Brazilian Supreme Court reclassified the former governor's crimes and that, therefore, they would be "only electoral crimes." The Swiss Federal Court responded that the documents are "potentially useful for fully reconstructing the flow of money related to crimes committed after 2010, which are not time-barred." Furthermore, Swiss authorities emphasized that decisions made within Brazil do not declare that a foreign investigation should be abandoned.