The former president of Brazil, Fernando Collor, was arrested early and ordered to begin to serve a prison sentence resulting from his conviction in 2023 for corruption.
Collor was found guilty of having received 20 million reais ($ 3.5 million) to facilitate contracts between BR Distributidora, a fuel distributor formerly controlled by the Petrobras State Company and the UTC Entenharia construction company for the construction of fuel distribution bases. In return, he offered political support to the appointment of leaders of BR Distributidora while he was still belonging to the State.
Collor, who led the country from 1990 to 1992, was sentenced to eight years and 10 months, to be purged initially in prison, rather than in the interior residence. He was arrested on Friday in the northeast state of Alagoas.
Under the Brazilian legal system, the cases concerning the members of the Congress, the Presidents and the Ministers go directly to the Supreme Court. He was not yet in prison because his lawyers still had calls.
The case stems from the operation Car Wash, a radical corruption investigation which involved the best politicians and businessmen in Latin America – including the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva, who was arrested in 2018 and imprisoned for almost two years.
Collor, 75, was the first Brazilian president elected by popular vote in 1989, after a 21 -year -old military dictatorship. He was dismissed and dismissed from his functions by the Congress in 1992 following allegations of corruption. In 2007, he was elected senator representing his original state of Alagoas in northeast Brazil.
The judge of the Supreme Court, Alexandre de Moraes, ordered the arrest of the former president on Thursday, the full board of directors to vote on Friday if it were to confirm the decision. De Moraes said in his decision that Collor should start to serve his sentence, noting that the lawyers of the former president tried to drag the procedures by calls.
The judge also declared that the court had previously ruled in similar cases that, once the calls have no foundation, the sentence may be Purg immediately.
Collor’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
