Alessandro Vieira says he is ‘sure’ that the arrest of STF ministers ‘will come’

Senator Alessandro Vieira (MDB-SE), rapporteur of the CPI on Organized Crime, stated this Thursday, 15th, that he is “absolutely certain” that the arrest of ministers of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) “will arrive”, in this or the next legislatures. According to a statement in an interview with West Magazineit just depends on the senators having the “courage” to act.

This Wednesday, the 15th, STF minister Gilmar Mendes asked the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) to open an investigation to investigate possible abuse of authority by Vieira. Gilmar’s request comes after the parliamentarian proposed in the CPI’s final report the indictment of Gilmar himself and also of ministers Dias Toffoli and Alexandre de Moraes, in addition to the Attorney General of the Republic, Paulo Gonet.

The CPI report was rejected by the majority of the commission’s members. According to Vieira, the vote took place “under direct threat” from STF ministers. He said in the interview that he “has a clean record” and that he “doesn’t owe these guys anything.”

“Here (in the Senate) we don’t deal with petty criminals. We deal with the greatest interests of the Republic”, stated the parliamentarian. “There is no point in an authoritarian statement, there is no point in a threat, because the facts are there”, he added.

Alessandro Vieira had proposed the indictment of Gilmar Mendes in the report due to the minister’s decision that overturned the CPI’s request to break banking, tax and telematic secrecy of Maridt Participações, a company through which Dias Toffoli’s family held shares in the Tayayá resort. The judge accepted the request for habeas corpus filed in a case for which he was the rapporteur and had no relation to the CPI.

Gilmar Mendes stated that the rapporteur “forgot about his fellow militiamen and decided to involve the Federal Supreme Court”.

“When I saw my name included in that list of those indicted by the senator reporting this case, I said: it’s curious. He forgot about his fellow militiamen and decided to involve the Federal Supreme Court for having granted a habeas corpus. But just this narrated fact shows exactly that we have descended a lot on the scale of degradation”, said Gilmar.

Gilmar asks the Public Ministry to investigate the senator’s possible inclusion in the law that deals with abuse of authority. In an interview with Estadão, Vieira stated that statements by Minister Gilmar Mendes sound like a “5th grade” provocation. He stated that it would be ‘cowardly’ not to call for the indictment of the ministers and Gonet.