The Court of Cassation, the highest court in the Italian justice system, denied the extradition of former MP Carla Zambelli to Brazil, considering that she... There was no impartial trial. in the Supreme Federal Court (STF). The sentence, with 16 pages. (read at the end of this article), was announced this Thursday (11).
The Italian judges pointed to "dual function" of the minister Alexandre de Moraes in the case that sentenced Zambelli to ten years in prison for hacking into the National Council of Justice (CNJ) system and issuing a false arrest warrant against the minister himself.
According to the court, multiple elements have emerged that raise doubts about the impartiality of the Brazilian court, because Moraes acted simultaneously as a member of the judging panel and as a victim of one of the crimes attributed to the former congresswoman.
The ruling describes how the minister was the rapporteur for the case, participated in the decisions that led to the conviction and loss of parliamentary mandate, issued the arrest warrant, drafted the extradition request, and provided information about the prison where Zambelli would serve her sentence.
For the judges, this accumulation of functions constituted a “macroscopic violation of the right to defenseThe court also stated that Brazil had not presented concrete evidence of the fairness of the process.
Case closed and new trial in July.
The Court of Cassation had already decided to deny the extradition in a hearing held on May 22, when it accepted the defense's appeal and overturned the lower court's ruling. Zambelli, who had been imprisoned in Rome for almost ten months, was released the same day. The grounds for the decision have only now become public.
With the publication of the sentence, the first extradition request is closed and Brazil has no right to appeal. The case will not proceed to the Italian government, a step that would only occur if extradition had been authorized.
Zambelli is still facing a second extradition request, related to her five-year sentence for illegal possession of a firearm and unlawful restraint, in the incident where she pursued a man while armed in São Paulo. The Rome Court of Appeals authorized this extradition in April, the defense appealed, and the Court of Cassation will judge the case on July 1st.
In this second case, the victim of the crime is not Moraes, and the rapporteur at the Supreme Court was Justice Gilmar Mendes, circumstances that could lead to a different outcome.
Read the full sentence:
With information from Folha de S.Paulo.
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