In his decision on Wednesday, Judge José Antonio Dias Toffoli confirmed that the imprisonment of President Lula da Silva, linked to the same investigation, was “one of the country’s greatest judicial errors in history”.

Dias Toffoli believed that the evidence contained in the confessions of construction company executives, made under a collaboration agreement signed by Odebrecht in 2017, is “unusable” by “any jurisdiction.” In this way, it destroyed the evidence from the confessions of the executives involved in the ‘Lava Jato’ corruption scandal.

The accord also provided for the payment of a $2.6 billion fine to the United States, Switzerland and Brazil.

At the Latin American giant, Odebrecht was accused by the prosecution of taking part in a network of bribes and falsified contracts with the state-owned Petrobras along with other companies, politicians and intermediaries.

The network was discovered in 2014 by research called “Lavajato”became one of the largest corruption scandals in the country.

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Allegations against the company have transcended Brazil, with lawsuits pending in other Latin American and African countries, and dozens of prominent politicians laced with corruption charges, including several former presidents.

Lula’s prison: the biggest mistake

Judge Dias Toffoli in his office on Wednesday denounced “the dire consequences” of evidence obtained “in the margins of the law (…) for hundreds of people under investigation or prosecution in Brazil and abroad.”

The magistrate has been a member of the Supreme Court since 2009, when he was appointed in his second term by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Lula spent 18 months in prison between 2018 and 2019 after being convicted of corruption and money laundering in the ‘Java Jato’ case, on charges of receiving bribes from another Brazilian construction giant, OAS.

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But their convictions were overturned in March 2021 by another Supreme Court judge. Three months later, former judge Sergio Moro, who sentenced Lula to prison, was declared “partial” by the Supreme Court.

“The imprisonment of Lula can be regarded as one of the greatest judicial errors in the history of the country,” said Dias Toffoli.

Justice Minister Flávio Dino said in a post on the X network (formerly Twitter) that the magistrate’s decision “reaffirms President Lula’s innocence”.

The Union Attorney General, who defends the government’s interests, announced on Wednesday the formation of a group to investigate the actions of former Judge Moro and the “Lava Jato” prosecutors. (JO)