Former President Collor to serve sentence under house arrest
Former President Fernando Collor de Mello was released from prison on Thursday night (May 1) in Maceió, Alagoas state. The politician was granted permission to serve his sentence under house arrest following a decision by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, based on a favorable recommendation from Attorney General Paulo Gonet.
House arrest was requested by the former president’s defense due to chronic health issues, including sleep apnea, Parkinson’s disease, and bipolar disorder, as well as his advanced age of 75.
Collor, sentenced to 8 years and 10 months for ive corruption and money laundering, will be required to wear an electronic anklet and will only be allowed visits from his lawyers.
The former president was sentenced by the Supreme Court in May 2023 in a case stemming from Operation Car Wash. The court determined that Collor, as leader of the Brazilian Labor Party (PTB), was responsible for political appointments to BR Distribuidora, then a state-owned subsidiary of Petrobras, and allegedly received BRL 20 million in illicit benefits from contracts with the company between 2010 and 2014.
In November of last year, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction after rejecting the defense’s appeals for reversal. On April 24 of this year, Justice Moraes dismissed a second appeal from the defense and ordered the former president’s immediate arrest.
President-elect
Fernando Collor de Mello was elected President of Brazil in 1989, in the first direct election for the office after the military dictatorship. He ran on a platform focused on combating the “maharajas,” a term used to describe corrupt public servants with exorbitant salaries. Collor defeated prominent figures, including current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and former governors Leonel Brizola and Mário Covas.
In his third year in office, he was accused of corruption by his own brother, Pedro
A Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (I) was established, and its final report concluded that Collor had directly benefited from a scheme of embezzlement and influence peddling orchestrated by his campaign treasurer, PC Farias.
Congress approved Collor’s impeachment, and he was removed from office on December 30, 1992.
Collor remained ineligible until 2000. He later returned to politics, being elected senator for Alagoas, his political stronghold, in 2007. In the 2022 elections, the former president ran for governor of the state but was defeated, finishing in third place.
