Probe on former Brazil president Lula sent back to lower court

Supreme Court Justice Teori Zavascki has decided to send back the investigation on former Brazil president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to Federal Judge Sérgio Moro, who presides over Operation Car Wash, the investigations into the Petrobras scandal, from Curitiba, Paraná. In his decision announced Monday (Jun. 13),Zavascki also ruled that a wiretapped telephone conversation between Lula and President Dilma Rousseff, who has been suspended for her impeachment trial for about a month now, is inadmissible.

The conversation took place on March 16 this year, following the announcement of Lula's appointment as Chief of Staff by Rousseff (he was barred from taking office). In the talk reported in a Federal Police intelligence document, Rousseff called Lula and told him she was going to send him his instrument of investiture as Chief of Staff.

Teori Zavascki, the justice in charge of Operation Car Wash in the Supreme Court, ruled that the wiretap should be excluded from the evidence because the conversation was recorded after Judge Sérgio Moro had ordered Federal Police to suspend the eavesdropping. According to Justice Zavascki, Moro usurped the Supreme Court authority by making the talks public.

Translated by Mayra Borges