Sentenced in Corruption Scandal, Brazilian Flees to Italy

11/18/2013 - 08h36

Sentenced to 12 years and 7 months in prison by Brazil's Supreme Court for his participation in the mensalão scheme, the former director of Banco do Brasil, Henrique Pizzolato, fled from Brazil to Italy and announced yesterday that he will request a new trial by an Italian court.

A Federal Police team was at this house yesterday searching for him, but his family said they don't know his whereabouts. Yesterday Pizzolato's relatives announced to the press that he has been in Italy for 45 days.

Pizzolato's lawyer in the mensalão trial, Marthius Lobato, said he only was told yesterday that Pizzolato was in Italy and that he didn't know how Pizzolato left the country. Pizzolato has Italian citizenship and had his European passport confiscated by Brazilian courts last year.

Lobato said his participation in the case is over and disclosed a letter by Pizzolato, in which he complains of the way the Supreme Court conducted the trial and said he will request another.

"As I don't see a chance for a non-politically, non-election motivated trial, in a clear state of exception, I have willingly decided to exercise my lawful right to freedom in order to obtain a new trial in Italy in a court that doesn't submit to impositions of corporate media, in compliance with the extradition treaty of Brazil and Italy."

Pizzolato was sentenced after he authorized US$ 31.8 million (R$ 73.8 million) to be transferred from Banco do Brasil in the mensalão scheme, which distributed millions of reais to politicians for their support of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in congress between 2003 and 2005.

In his defense, Pizzolato said that the Banco do Brasil funds were used to pay advertising campaigns, and not embezzled in the scheme. But he received US$ 145,000 (R$ 336,000) for his involvement in an envelope he said he gave to the PT without opening.

As Pizzolato has double citizenship, it will be difficult for Brazilian authorities to bring him back. The Ministry of Justice can request that he be extradited from Italy, but it is unlikely that the Italians will agree because he is also an Italian citizen.

PARAGUAY

Brazil's Federal Police doesn't know how Pizzolato left the country, but believes he travelled from Ponta Porã (MS) to Pedro Juan Caballero, in Paraguay, and from there to Asuncion, the capital of the country. Brazilians don't need a passport to enter Paraguay.

The police said Pizzolato might have obtained a new copy of his Italian passport at the Italian consulate in Asuncion, after stating that he'd lost the original passport to obtain another.

Pizzolato spent some months in Italy last year while the trial was under way - though his sentence had already been determined. At the time he said he travelled to accompany a sick relative and restated so in the letter he left.

In November, his trip led Supreme Court Justice Joaquim Barbosa, rapporteur at the Supreme Court, to order the passports of all the defendants to be seized. The measure proved to be ineffective in Pizzolato's case.

The Federal Police is responsible for carrying out the arrest warrants against those sentenced in the mensalão trial, and believe the Supreme Court could have ordered some kind of surveillance to avoid Pizzolato's escape.

Police officers heard by Folha said the Federal Police didn't monitor closely any of the defendants in recent months because it is illegal to do so without judicial authorization.

Translated by THOMAS MUELLO

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	Caio Guatelli - 18.ago.2005/Folhapress
	The former director of Banco do Brasil, Henrique Pizzolato, fled from Brazil to Italy