Moraes gives PGR 5 days to comment on Tagliaferro’s appeal

Federal Supreme Court (STF) Minister Alexandre de Moraes has given the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) five days to say whether he agrees with a request from computer expert Eduardo Tagliaferro to annul the seizure of his mobile phone, which would effectively prevent the use of any evidence found on the device.

The phone was confiscated as part of a confidential investigation opened to investigate the origin of the leak of messages from assistants in Alexandre de Moraes’ office at the STF and the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) during the investigation into allies of former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL). Tagliaferro headed the TSE’s special advisory committee for combating disinformation.

The seizure was ordered by the minister during the expert’s testimony before the Federal Police of São Paulo last month. The delegate who conducted the hearing asked lawyer Eduardo Kuntz, representing Tagliaferro and present at the hearing, if he would voluntarily hand over the device. Faced with the defense’s refusal, and already armed with a personal search warrant, the police chief seized the phone.

In his decision, Alexandre de Moraes explained that knowledge of the device is essential to investigate the leaked messages. “There is no other adequate diligence to fully clarify the facts,” he said.

The defense claims that the decision was arbitrary, because the expert was heard as a witness, and asks for the immediate return of the phone.

An initial appeal was rejected by the minister, who described the request as “confused, unfounded and absolutely impertinent”.

The investigation into the disclosure of the dialogues has been linked to the investigation into fake news, which investigates attacks, insults and threats to ministers. Alexandre de Moraes justified that the “deliberate leak of information” could be associated with “a structured action by a possible criminal organization whose aim is to destabilize the republican institutions”.

The device seized by the PF is not the same one that was in the possession of the Civil Police of São Paulo in May 2023, when Tagliaferro was arrested in flagrante delicto in an episode of domestic violence. It is suspected that the conversations were extracted from the expert’s old cell phone. It is not known, however, whether he himself made the conversations public or whether the messages were spread by third parties who possibly had access to the device.

Tagliaferro vehemently denies having spread the messages. In an interview with Statesaid there was “no connection” to the leak.

Source: Terra

Rose

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