Brazil's Supreme Court has ordered the arrest of former President Fernando Collor de Mello after rejecting his appeals against a corruption conviction, with a ruling from 2023 sentencing him to nearly nine years in prison for money laundering and bribery.
Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes has rejected former President Fernando Collor de Mello's appeals against his corruption conviction and ordered his immediate arrest, according to a court decision released Thursday.
The move follows the court's 2023 ruling, which sentenced Collor—Brazil's first democratically elected president after the military dictatorship ended in 1985—to eight years and 10 months in prison for corruption and money laundering. Collor’s lawyer expressed “surprise and concern” over the ruling but said the former president would comply with the order.
Moraes has called for a full Supreme Court session to review and potentially ratify the arrest order.
Collor was accused by federal prosecutors of accepting around 30 million reais (approximately $5.28 million) in bribes from a subsidiary of state-run oil giant Petrobras. Though elected president in 1990, Collor was impeached by Congress two years later over a separate corruption case, for which he was later acquitted in 1994. He subsequently returned to politics and served as a senator.
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