Cristiano Zanin Martins, former President Lula’s attorney, comments on the second hearing held in Curitiba to hear the defense witnesses in the criminal proceeding over the so-called “triplex” and Lula’s presidential collection.

Transcript:

The eleven defense witnesses heard in Curitiba, today, in the criminal proceeding over the three-story apartment in the City of Guarujá, have thoroughly confirmed the defense we presented on behalf of former President Lula and his wife Marisa, who is now deceased. I would like to highlight two out of the eleven testimonies.

The first one is the testimony of Professor Pedro Dallari, who legally advised the Bancoop cooperative from the moment the delivery of its real estate developments started being monitored by the São Paulo State Attorney’s Office. Dallari explained that Bancoop entered into an agreement with the State Attorney’s Office.

The agreement provided, among other things, that the members of the cooperative should be able to choose between continuing with Bancoop or hiring a construction company. In the case of the real estate development “Mar Cantábrico” (Cantabrian Sea) – which is now known as the Solaris building – the cooperative members decided, in a meeting, to hire the construction company OAS.

To take over the development, OAS required the adhesion of at least 90% of the cooperative members to the commercial proposal terms. The fact that Marisa didn’t adhere to said proposal’s terms on the occasion doesn’t indicate any irregularity, as Marisa had a relationship with Bancoop and so it remained.

This happened in 2009. It is absolutely impossible that Marisa could foresee the intervention of the State Attorney’s Office or that the development would be taken over by OAS when she purchased the membership interest in 2005.

Thus, the allegation of the State Attorney’s Office is absolutely unrealistic when it tries to make a connection between the membership interest she purchased in 2005 and the takeover of the development by OAS in 2009.

Another very important testimony today was of former Minister Alexandre Padilha, who held the position as Minister of Institutional Relations during Lula’s administration. Padilha explained that the increase of the parliamentary basis in Lula’s administration occurred as a result of ideas and projects and never involved any illegal funds. He also explained that, during Lula’s administration, a political committee was created in order to institutionalize these relations.

Padilha’s testimony is in harmony with yesterday’s testimony of former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who explained that the increase of the parliamentary basis in his administration occurred exactly in the same way as it did in Lula’s administration and as it is being done in the current administration.

Cristiano Zanin Martins