According to De Moraes, the now-deleted post below from Senator Do Val was also a crime because it threatened to expose criminal conduct by members of the Brazilian Federal Police acting under the direction of Alexandre de Moraes.
“Friends and acquaintances of the Federal Police, I want to share with you a message of extreme importance about individual responsibility in complying with illegal orders. Recently, in a conversation with the top leadership of the U.S. government, it was pointed out that, since the Nuremberg trials, it has been internationally recognized that individuals cannot exempt themselves from legal responsibility simply by claiming that they were following orders from above. This principle reinforces that the defense of "was only following orders" has since not exempted individual responsibility for acts that violate human rights.
Federal police officers in Brazil need to be aware of this seriousness, which ranges from losing their passports to having assets seized and spending 22 years in a closed regime. We are working together with other international human rights bodies and have already gathered the names of all the federal police officers who appear in each investigation: investigators, experts, agents and delegates who acted illegally when carrying out arrest, search and seizure orders, among other illegalities already reported and already included in our dossier. Much is still to come to the detriment of those who violated human rights, whether they comply with an order from the superior or not.
The wealth of details we have about each member of the Federal Police who contributed to illegal actions is impressive. We know what processes they have worked on, what anti-constitutional decisions they have made, and what actions have infringed on human rights. We have an extensive list of these police officers and they will all answer for their actions, as there is already sufficient evidence of the commission of crimes against human rights in all investigations. There is no more room for excuses such as: ‘I'm just following orders.’
I take this opportunity to thank you, on behalf of all the work that has been contributing for years both to us in the US and to Brazil.”