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Brazilian Judge Delays “For Now” Decision On Indictment Of U.S. Journalist Greenwald

Above Photo: Author and journalist Glenn Greenwald speaks to the audience at Brazilian Press Association in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil July 30, 2019. Picture was taken on July 30, 2019. REUTERS/Lucas Landau

 

Note: Glenn Greenwald says the decision is not enough. He is pleased not to be prosecuted but the court needs to protect core press freedom and his lawyers will seek a broader ruling. In the meantime, Greenwald and his team will keep reporting on the corruption in the Operation Car Wash prosecutions.

Greenwald is seeking “a decisive rejection from the Supreme Court of this abusive prosecution on the grounds that it is a clear and grave assault on core press freedoms. Anything less would leave open the possibility of further erosion of the fundamental freedom of the press against other journalists.” 

Here is how the Intercept described the court decision:

“In a decision announced Thursday, Judge Ricardo Augusto Soares Leite ruled that Greenwald’s prosecution would not go forward, but only on account of a previous finding by the Brazilian Supreme Court that The Intercept’s reporting on Operation Car Wash had not transgressed any legal boundaries. In the absence of the injunction issued by a Supreme Court minister that prohibited investigations into Greenwald related to this case, Leite said he would have let the charges against Greenwald move forward. The judge also said that, if the Supreme Court injunction were to be overturned, he would be open to charging Greenwald.”

Many have spoken out in support of Greenwald and criticized the prosecution, e.g., 40 civil liberties groups denounced the legal intimidation of Greenwald and The Intercept Brasil. A statement from the Committee to Protect Journalists described the charges as “a disproportionate abuse of power by Brazilian authorities [that] poses a threat to any investigative journalist.”

Investigative journalism is under attack. The threatened Greenwald prosecution is one example, as is the prosecution of Julian Assange and the imprisonment of Chelsea Manning and Jefremy Hammond for refusing to testify against Assange. KZ

Greenwald Seeks a Decisive Rejection of Prosecution from the Supreme Court to Protect Core Press Freedoms

BRASILIA (Reuters) – A Brazilian judge indicted six people accused of hacking the phones of prosecutors in the country’s biggest corruption case on Thursday, but held off “for now” on accepting cybercrimes charges against U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald.

The judge, Ricardo Soares Leite, said the Supreme Court had to rule first on an earlier injunction shielding Greenwald from investigation before he could decide on the indictment, which charges Greenwald, editor of news website The Intercept, with allegedly abetting the hacking as it published leaked information.

“I decline, for now, to receive the complaint against Glenn Greenwald, due to the controversy over the extent of the injunction granted by Minister Gilmar Mendes,” the judge wrote.

The damaging leaks showed then-judge Sergio Moro, who is now justice minister, advising prosecutors in the graft case against former leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was jailed for corruption but released 18 months later.

Intercept Brasil, edited by Greenwald, published the leaked conversations that pointed to collusion between the judge and the prosecuting team. He was charged last month with criminal association with the group of six people accused of hacking the phones of members of the prosecutor’s team in the so-called Car Wash investigation.

Greenwald welcomed the judge’s decision not to proceed with the charges but said it was insufficient to guarantee the rights of a free press.

“This is not enough. We seek a decisive rejection from the Supreme Court of this abusive prosecution on the grounds that it is a clear and grave assault on core press freedoms,” he said in a statement.

Greenwald, a resident of Brazil and fierce critic of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, is best known for his work on the disclosures of Edward Snowden, the American former National Security Agency contractor who leaked secret documents about U.S. telephone and internet surveillance in 2013.

Greenwald’s lawyers argued that he should not have been charged because an injunction by Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes had barred prosecutors from investigating him for information published in the media.

Mendes cited Greenwald’s “constitutional right to the protection of journalistic sources.”

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