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Judge Marcelo Bretas, who is leading the Lava Jato investigation in Rio, denied on Monday the request of one of the operators of Sergio Cabral's scheme to suspend the lawsuit he is facing in Federal Court. In an attempt to halt the process, Lineu Martins invoked the decision of the president of the Supreme Court, Dias Toffoli, on COAF (read more in Toffoli's decision affects international agreements).
In the ruling, the first after the Supreme Court's order, Bretas denies the request because he understands that the case in question is amply supported by evidence, not just data from the control body, a condition imposed by the STF to suspend investigations.
“None of the decisions handed down, especially in the criminal action, were based exclusively on the COAF report. The MPF managed to present other elements, many of which were obtained independently of the COAF work, to corroborate its allegations and, consequently, support the decisions. As an illustration, I would like to point out that the complaint was supported by 37 documents, which is to say that the absence or withdrawal of the COAF report would not change the decisions taken so far,” Bretas states.
In addition to denying the appeal, Bretas uses the ruling to record Toffoli's “extreme use of the general power of caution” in the decision “since it expanded, to the Police and the Public Prosecutor's Office, the matter that the STF Plenary recognized as having general repercussions, to encompass other inspection and control bodies in addition to the Federal Revenue, such as COAF and BACEN”.
