Former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is likely to accept a position in Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s Cabinet, but planned to travel to Brasilia yesterday to discuss his options with her in person, a source said on Monday.
Brazil’s top three newspapers also reported late on Monday that Lula was expected to accept a ministerial position in the coming days, after a crusading Brazilian federal judge was given jurisdiction to rule over money laundering charges presented against him.
Any decision to arrest Lula would now be made by Brazilian Federal Judge Sergio Moro, who oversees a sweeping investigation into kickbacks at state-run oil firm Petrobras and approved the detention of dozens of senior executives.
State prosecutors last week filed for the arrest of Lula after charging him with money laundering for concealing ownership of a beachfront condominium, in a case that had been separate from the investigation overseen by Moro in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba.
Accepting a Cabinet position would give Lula immunity from Moro, though not from the Brazilian Supreme Court. The source said Lula, Rousseff’s predecessor and political mentor, was nearly convinced he should take the position.
It was not yet decided whether he should be Rousseff’s chief of staff or replace Brazilian Minister of Communications Ricardo Berzoini, the source said.
Sao Paulo Judge Maria Priscilla Oliveira said that the state prosecutors’ case had an “undeniable connection” to the Petrobras investigation, in which dozens of engineering executives schemed to siphon money from Petrobras in order to bribe public officials.
News magazine Veja reported a major break in the Petrobras case, providing details of alleged plea bargain testimony from the former head of engineering conglomerate Andrade Gutierrez that named several sitting ministers.
Veja reported, without saying how it obtained the information, that former Andrade Gutierrez chief executive officer Otavio Azevedo confessed that a bribery scheme already documented at Petrobras was standard operating practice for spending throughout the government.
Azevedo, who is now under house arrest, said the graft scheme included payoffs for soccer stadiums built for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Veja reported, backing up similar reports from newspaper Folha de S Paulo in November last year.
Azevedo’s plea bargain, if confirmed, would be the first from a head of Brazil’s biggest engineering groups, which have been at the center of the Petrobras investigation rattling the nation’s political establishment for two years.
Moro has already allowed federal police to detain Lula for questioning after prosecutors said he might have benefited from the scheme, an event that spurred isolated clashes between Lula’s supporters and critics.
Lula has disavowed ownership of the apartment and denied any wrongdoing, calling the investigation political in nature.
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