Italy Refuses to Send Moraes's Ex-Aide to Brazil, Ruling the Justice Is Victim, Investigator and Judge

An Italian court has refused to hand Brazil the former aide accused of leaking the inner workings of Justice Alexandre de Moraes's office, and its reason goes to the heart of how Moraes runs his cases.

The Court of Appeal in Catanzaro, in southern Italy, ruled Oct. 22 that Eduardo Tagliaferro could not count on a fair trial in Brazil, because Moraes is at once the injured party, the investigator and the judge in the case against him. The court returned Tagliaferro's passports and lifted the ban on his leaving Italy, according to the ruling as described by Folha de S.Paulo, which obtained it. Italian prosecutors can still appeal to Italy's top court.

"FREE!" Tagliaferro wrote on X Monday, in Portuguese. "On 10/22 I was informed, and on Sunday I received the ruling. Thank you to all the Brazilians who fought with me against this dictatorship of the robe."

Victim, investigator and judge

Tagliaferro worked for Moraes at Brazil's election court, the TSE. In 2024, Folha and journalist Glenn Greenwald published messages from inside Moraes's office that, they reported, showed the justice using the election court outside normal procedure to produce reports and open investigations against Bolsonaro supporters. Brazil's Supreme Court later charged Tagliaferro with leaking official secrets, obstruction and attempting to abolish the democratic rule of law. He says he has lived in Italy, where he is a citizen, since April 2025.

The extradition request came from Moraes himself, in August 2025, based on an arrest warrant Moraes issued. The Italian judges found that the same man whose office was exposed directed the investigation, weighed its results, imposed restrictions on Tagliaferro and would help decide his guilt. They concluded that the whole case sits in the hands of a judge who is himself an injured party, putting Tagliaferro's right to a defense at risk.

That matters under the 1989 extradition treaty between the two countries. Article 5 says extradition will not be granted if the person "has been or will be subjected to a proceeding that does not ensure the minimum rights of defense."

Italy's second no this year

This is not the first time an Italian court has reached that conclusion about Moraes. In June, Italy's highest court, the Court of Cassation, refused to send back former congresswoman Carla Zambelli, a Bolsonaro ally convicted in a case in which Moraes was both a target of the alleged crime and a member of the panel that judged her, Folha reported at the time. The Catanzaro judges cited that ruling and found the signs of bias in Tagliaferro's case just as strong, and in some ways stronger.

Why it lands now

The ruling surfaced two days after Brazil's presidential runoff, a vote already clouded by questions. One minute after polls closed Sunday, Justice Cristiano Zanin, Lula's personal lawyer until Lula put him on the court, ordered two more hours of voting. The election court's own president said no rule authorized it. Lula was declared the winner, and hours later Moraes ordered the passports of the conservative runner-up, Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, canceled.

Greenwald, who has reported on Moraes for years, tied the two together in a post on X Tuesday. "It's not just Flavio Bolsonaro who fled Brazil to escape the tyrannical persecution of Alexandre de Moraes and the pro-Lula wing of the Supreme Court," he wrote. "There are dozens of Brazilian exiles who have done the same." unga.news could not independently confirm that Flávio has left Brazil.

Greenwald said Moraes's extradition requests "have been repeatedly denied by multiple countries and institutions," naming Spain, Italy, INTERPOL "and even the US under Biden." Italy's refusal, he wrote, rested on the fact that Moraes "wants to act as the supposed victim, investigator, and judge."

"Nobody in their right mind who is a political enemy of Moraes would remain in Brazil" once it is clear Moraes intends to imprison them, Greenwald wrote.

If Italian prosecutors don't win an appeal, the man accused of exposing Moraes's office stays free in Italy, out of reach of the justice who would judge him.