Exclusive: Rocha Matttos reopens Celso Daniel case.

By Claudio Julio Tognolli_247 – The Lula government inaugurated a Federal Police force devoted to combating the PT's commercial and political enemies – something he, a Federal Police delegate for seven years, didn't see even when he served under the dictatorship. The "republican Federal Police," a phrase coined by Lula's former Minister of Justice, Márcio Thomaz Bastos, is a fallacy: Lula's Federal Police was the Federal Police of Lula's interests. This outburst comes from former federal judge João Carlos da Rocha Mattos, 62 years old. Rocha Mattos was released from prison less than 20 days ago. He served seven years and five months. He was the only defendant imprisoned in the case of the assassination of the former mayor of Santo André, Celso Daniel – all because, he says, he possessed compromising tapes, the content of which Lula's Federal Police "edited and erased." Rocha Mattos ordered the destruction of these tapes, as a judge, because they were illegal. Even so, he maintains that the Federal Police, when they arrested him in Operation Anaconda in October 2003, raided his house asking if he had copies of the tapes.

Accused of allegedly selling court rulings, Rocha Mattos spoke exclusively to Brasil 247 for two hours in his office in downtown São Paulo. He doesn't mince words about what he suffered: he concludes that his life changed after the Celso Daniel case fell into his hands. “Suffice it to say that there are still federal magistrates accused of rape, homicide, corruption, and money laundering. None of them were arrested or lost their positions, as I did. I received a lot of pressure because of the tapes in the Celso Daniel case. I received these threats from people who had been Lula's security guards in all his campaigns, one of them a federal police officer who was even appointed superintendent of the Federal Police in São Paulo after Lula won his first presidential election.” He is referring to police officer Francisco Balthazar da Silva.

Rocha Mattos is still astonished by Thomaz Bastos's "republican Federal Police." "Incredibly, the Federal Police became much more dependent on the PT (Workers' Party) starting with Lula's government than it was on the military governments during the darkest years of the dictatorship. The Federal Police has never been a republican police force. It is a government police force, commanded by the President of the Republic and the Minister of Justice. The great head of the Federal Police was the Minister of Justice, Marcio Thomaz Bastos, even though there is an executive as director of the Federal Police."

The former magistrate confesses that his greatest curiosity is to know how the Federal Police machine worked under Lula. “The Daslu case, for example, is a ridiculous conviction, almost 100 years, a sentence that even the worst criminals didn't receive. Cases with a similar conviction are extremely rare. Under Lula, there was a policy behind the Federal Police. There are financial crimes whose perpetrators committed the same illegal acts as others and didn't receive such harsh treatment.”

Rocha Mattos only has one final conviction against him, in a dispute with Judge Fausto Martin de Sanctis. In the other eight pending cases, he still has the right to appeal. He dreams of recovering his salary as a federal judge, and in this fight his lawyer is the criminal defense attorney Nabor Bulhões. Check out his testimony:

247 – How is your life today?

Rocha Mattos – I'm 62 years old, waking up super early. I always liked waking up early. Now I wake up early and come to the office. I already worked here when I was in semi-open confinement, but I worked and had to go back to sleep in São Miguel and lately in Belém, since the São Miguel prison closed. I come to the office, work, and stay until late. Before, I would stay until five, I had to get there at seven, in São Miguel and then in Belém. And I end up leaving here later now, at nine o'clock, that is, the first to arrive and the last to leave. And Dr. Raimundo Oliveira da Costa, who owns the office, has been my lawyer for over a year and has achieved great victories for me. He is someone I've known for many years, and although I hadn't seen him for a long time, we became closer mainly through letters when I was in Tremembé and he went to work in Paulista, and when he left there I ended up coming here with him.

247 – You have a privileged understanding of the justice system because you were a federal police officer, prosecutor, federal judge, and prisoner...

Rocha Mattos – I even know prison now! I know how hard it is to be in prison, how hard life is, because it's not just being locked up all the time; when you get out to semi-open confinement you can go out to work, that possibility exists. But we don't know the anxieties that exist, especially in closed confinement, in the semi-open regime. And during that time you take a lot of tumbles. In fact, normally those who get this time off prison are those who have committed heinous crimes, which is not my case, those who have a final judgment, homicide, kidnapping, so I was in prison for a long time. The sentences were quite high, they were reduced with appeals and so on. I still have some ongoing cases and it was very difficult, I even had difficulty communicating with my lawyer, but I survived.

247 – What did you think about most when you were in prison, what occupied your mind the most?

Rocha Mattos – I always thought I would end up resolving some situations, that I would get out. I didn't expect to be imprisoned for so long; I expected to be in prison for two or three years at most. I never imagined I would stay this long. Back then, when I was cleared of one case, the court would issue another, older ruling.

247 – And what did you hold on to?

Rocha Mattos – Ah, children, children, and my youngest daughter, who is six years old and was born when I was in the Federal Police, she was conceived when I was in the Federal Police. She's a child who is like a granddaughter to me and who has greatly renewed my life. And even Caio, who was 12 years old when I was arrested, was still a boy. The older ones are already well established in life.

247 – Within this system, what was the worst thing you saw?

Rocha Mattos - Look, there isn't one scene that particularly stood out, but it's the anguish of the prisoners in general, because they sometimes hold onto that benefit, and sometimes, often in fact, they are frustrated by the lack of justice, of freedom, and it really takes a long time to see solutions to the incidents.

247 – Did anyone frequently ask you for advice, knowing that you were a judge?

Rocha Mattos – Very, very.

247 – Tell us what charges you have against you.

Rocha Mattos – I've had more than twenty accusations against me, including some repeated ones, and this was even acknowledged by the prosecutors working in the first instance. There are overlapping accusations. The same conduct of mine gave rise to a lawsuit for prevarication and a lawsuit for corruption. The Public Prosecutor's Office sometimes said it was corruption, sometimes prevarication, sometimes money laundering. Today there are perhaps seven or eight accusations against me. I know it's absurd, but I know that I was the one who was arrested in the Santo André case, the Celso Daniel case. I am now free because I have already served part of my sentence, but I am still imprisoned in the Celso Daniel murder case. I received a sentence of three and a half years in a semi-open regime. I was accused of having disappeared with the tapes from the case, when it was not me who disappeared with the tapes from the case. Furthermore, these tapes were illicit evidence, and there is even a Supreme Court ruling stating that if the evidence is illicit, it cannot be used as an accusation of suppression of a document, that is, of itself. Second copies of these tapes were located months after their destruction. Although distributed electronically, in the courts, this writ of mandamus against me fell into the hands of Judge Terezinha Cazerta, who was in charge of some cases related to Operation Anaconda, in some of which she was, incidentally, deemed incompetent. There has never been such speed and efficiency in the Federal Court of São Paulo as there was in my case.

247 – Was there politics involved in Operation Anaconda?

Rocha Mattos – I still maintain that Operation Anaconda was a political operation against me. I maintain this because at that time, Anaconda was the second major operation of Lula's government. There was Operation Diamante before, in which a former minister of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), a judge, and a judge from a regional federal court, along with his wife, were targeted. But no one was arrested. With me, they were very harsh: suffice it to say that there are still federal magistrates accused of rape, homicide, corruption, and money laundering. None of them were arrested or lost their positions, as I did. I received a lot of pressure because of the tapes in the Celso Daniel case. I received these threats from people who had been Lula's security guards in all his campaigns, one of them a federal police officer who was even appointed superintendent of the Federal Police in São Paulo after Lula won his first presidential election. But the evidence in the Celso Daniel case was illegal, and I don't regret any decision I made. I think I could have just been more courteous with the people in the court. Sometimes, when I felt very pressured, I would react. I always tried, to react to these pressures, to demonstrate that I knew many things. I even have an example, but I won't mention names: I accused a judge of destroying two court cars. I read the other day, in Consultor Jurídico, that this judge is now being held accountable for the destruction of those cars.

247 – You were accused in the Anaconda case of selling sentences. What are these sentences, and what is the basis of the accusation?

Rocha Mattos – Actually, I have two accusations regarding this. One is a case that is still ongoing. The case is in the 10th Court. The other case, in which I was convicted by the court, is the case of the smuggler nicknamed Lobão. This Lobão was accused of smuggling cigarettes and other goods. I wasn't the one who granted provisional release to this Lobão, and he wasn't even a defendant. The defendants were his alleged front men. I never released the truck drivers who were transporting this diverted cargo. When the charges against Lobão's front men came, I wasn't even in the Justice system anymore. With the favorable opinion of the Public Prosecutor's Office, the only thing I did in this case was release, upon receipt of the vehicles, to the owners who were the alleged front men, but I didn't know about this. And nobody appealed this either. And you see, I was accused in this case of corruption and even of releasing cigarettes. Cigarettes were never released, neither by me nor by any other judge. These cigarettes remain seized by customs; they were manufactured in Paraguay, and I ended up facing corruption charges in this case. This case doesn't have a final judgment yet. A special appeal will be heard, and two habeas corpus petitions will be judged. But apart from these two cases, I have no other corruption charges against me.

247 – Chronologically, were these accusations made after you were in possession of the tapes from the Celso Daniel case?

Rocha Mattos – Yes, perfectly. The Anaconda case started wrong. It began in Alagoas, with a First Instance judge and not by the Regional Federal Court there. Nowadays, the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) no longer accepts that a judge from another jurisdiction can record another. Wiretapping now has to be ordered from the beginning by the court. And against judges from other regions, by the Regional Court of the specific jurisdiction. Anaconda started to investigate one thing and ended up investigating another. Judges Casem and Ali Mazloum and I were wiretapped by a judge from Alagoas for a year and eight months, and in fact, when our names appeared, that judge should have immediately informed the court, and not spent a year and eight months investigating in secret.

247 – What is your opinion on the Republican Federal Police, as it was called by Marcio Thomaz Bastos?

Rocha Mattos – I was a federal police officer for seven years, from 1976 to 1982, so I experienced a lot of the military period. During the military regime, the Federal Police never had a director-general; they were only colonels and generals from the Army, so of course the Federal Police was very closely linked to the military regime. But, incredibly, the Federal Police became much more dependent on the PT (Workers' Party) from Lula's government onwards than it was on the military governments during the "years of lead." The Federal Police has never been a republican police force. It is a government police force, commanded by the President of the Republic and the Minister of Justice. The great head of the Federal Police was the Minister of Justice, Marcio Thomaz Bastos, although there is an executive as director of the Federal Police. In a habeas corpus petition of mine from 2004, I wrote this: the Federal Police is a government police force. The Federal Police is a PT police force, of the PT government, as it was of the PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party) during the PSDB era. So much so that the Roseane Sarney case was an operation commanded against her by the Fernando Henrique Cardoso government. Therefore, the Federal Police, which used to be aligned with the PSDB party, became aligned with the PT party. What I think is good is that at the beginning of Dilma's government, the Federal Police significantly distanced itself from politics. Dilma is allowing the Federal Police to be much more professional. I think that interference in the Federal Police during Dilma's government is much less. During Lula's and Marcio Thomaz Bastos's time, the Federal Police became a PT police force. It wasn't a government police force, it was a Workers' Party police force.

247 – Why did Lula's Federal Police arrest some businessmen and not others, who were ultimately competing in the same type of business?

Rocha Mattos – For political reasons, there are even convictions like that of Daslu, which is a ridiculous conviction, reaching almost 100 years, a sentence that even the biggest criminals didn't receive. Cases with a conviction like that are extremely rare. Under Lula, there was a political agenda behind the Federal Police. There are financial crimes whose perpetrators committed the same illegal acts as others and didn't receive such harsh treatment. The courts also stopped being harsh, as can be seen in the case of Operation Sandcastle and as is being seen in the Satiagraha case. Unlike what happened in Anaconda, the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) began to soften its stance, it started to become less tolerant of these recordings. It began to consider illegal recordings that last for years and lack justification.

247 – Do you think everything came to a halt after Minister Gilmar Mendes was wiretapped?

Rocha Mattos – It wasn't just Minister Gilmar who was allegedly wiretapped; others were as well, and there are very serious suspicions of this. The Judiciary itself has been maturing. Initially, this wasn't seen in our case. Look, in my case, I even had a certain animosity towards the Mazloum brothers; I even litigated with them in the Banespa case, I sued both of them and was sued by them, and even so, Anaconda accused us together. There is no telephone connection between me, Casem, and Ali in Anaconda. They used evidence against me in which my ex-wife Norma, who was out of her mind because of the separation, threatened me with nonexistent things. Legally, these recordings could only be used for the defense, not in an attack against me. The Supreme Court's own jurisprudence is in this sense. Look at the case of Carlinhos Cachoeira in that Valdomiro Diniz scandal, from the PT party, in the Civil House; the prosecutor had recordings of Carlinhos, but wanted him to hand them over because, by law, only he was a legitimate party to deliver those recordings. Carlinhos was a victim of extortion by that advisor of José Dirceu. Carlinhos recorded everything, but he never handed it over to the police. But in my case, the same type of recording was accepted as evidence by the Regional Federal Court of the 3rd Region.

247 – Have any of your cases reached a final judgment?

Rocha Mattos – It's a case where the sentence was reduced from four to two years. This process had already begun before Operation Anaconda, and I was accused in it of making a false accusation against Judge Fausto de Sanctis. I accused him of abuse of authority, not a serious crime, and I ended up being sentenced to four years in prison under a closed regime. I served part of that sentence, and then the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) accepted my lawyer's habeas corpus, reducing the sentence to two years under an open regime. The process was completely distorted.

247 – You say that in the Celso Daniel case there was interference from the Federal Police as a state and party police force...

Rocha Mattos – It was the Federal Police of the Executive branch. That was terrible for me, although I considered the evidence illegitimate. The Celso Daniel tapes were improperly kept in an unknown location, and this generated friction with Judge Terezinha Cazerta, who filed the writ of habeas corpus against me. The Public Prosecutor's Office took advantage of this to try, and succeeded, in keeping me in jail for so many years. When Elias Maluco killed Tim Lopes, he was convicted of homicide and forming a criminal gang. He received a sentence of one year and eight months; I received a sentence of three years, the maximum sentence, for the alleged gang activity. There is no case like this in the Justice system.

247 – Talk about the tape from the case...

Rocha Mattos – The investigation into Celso's case began during the FHC (Fernando Henrique Cardoso) administration. At the request of the PT (Workers' Party), the Federal Police got involved. But when Lula took office, the Federal Police obviously changed course. Then, the Federal Police tampered with the tapes; I don't know who did it. The Federal Police erased the tapes; there are sections with untranscribed conversations. It's an unburied story. What they did was cover up the case because it was very damaging, more so than the Mensalão scandal. What happened was that the money from the bus companies, collected for the PT, wasn't reaching Celso Daniel in full. When he discovered this, his situation became very difficult. There's only one person convicted in this case: me. More co-defendants will emerge. I am the only one punished in the Celso Daniel case. Federal Police agents manipulated Celso Daniel's tapes. The judge in the case, then a judicial police officer, Dr. Porto, admitted that the recordings began to be made to investigate alleged drug trafficking. He knew it was to investigate the PT (Workers' Party), but he didn't have territorial jurisdiction for that. And another thing: it was a political crime, therefore it should be investigated by the Federal Police. This case ended up in my hands. I ordered the seizure of these tapes, which I don't even know if they were originals, but they had already been altered. If the Federal Police under FHC (Fernando Henrique Cardoso) wanted to harm the PT, under Lula it changed and became a police force of the PT government. Judge Porto admitted that he authorized recordings that were for drugs, but, in the end, were political. Why didn't it appear in the proceedings that he was against members of the PT? Dr. Porto seemed to be complicit in this lie that it was a drug case. I destroyed the first tapes. But everything there was altered, it came altered, always involving Gilberto Carvalho, Lula's former personal secretary. The Federal Police filtered the tapes to remove what might be the most serious.

247 – And what would that be?

Rocha Mattos – I don't know.