Brazilian President Michel Temer was on Thursday charged with obstruction of justice and racketeering, according to a statement posted on the prosecutor general’s office Web site, threatening to delay the government’s economic reform agenda in the Brazilian Congress.
It is the second set of criminal charges filed against Temer based on the plea-bargain testimony of the owners of JBS SA, the world’s largest meatpacker.
They accused Temer of taking bribes in return for political favors and of conspiring to buy the silence of a witness who could implicate the leader.
In a statement on Thursday, Temer strongly rejected all allegations of wrongdoing.
Temer’s earlier corruption charge, that he took bribes from JBS officials, was blocked last month by Temer’s allies in the lower house of Congress, which has the power to decide whether a president should stand trial by the Brazilian Supreme Court.
Despite the lower house’s move to block the charges, they remain valid and can could be pursued by prosecutors once Temer leaves office. His term ends on Jan. 1, 2019.
General Prosecutor of Brazil Rodrigo Janot has also filed charges against former JBS chairman Joesley Batista, the billionaire who implicated Temer.
Batista was on Sunday arrested for concealing other crimes in his plea bargain deal.
Batista’s lawyer, Antonio Carlos Kakay, rejected the charges brought by Janot, arguing in a statement that the prosecutor had violated the rules of plea bargains by using his client’s testimony to incriminate him.
On Wednesday, Batista’s brother, JBS chief executive Wesley Batista, was also arrested for alleged insider trading to avoid hefty losses related to the May plea deal.
Late on Thursday, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Edson Fachin converted Joesley Batista and executive Ricardo Saud’s temporary detentions to preventative detention and gave them 10 days to respond before ruling on Janot’s request to withdraw their plea deal.
The arrests of the Batista brothers have improved Temer’s prospects of surviving the new charges and serving out his term through next year. Temer and his allies expect the new charges to be voted on in the lower house next month with wider support than he obtained in the 263-227 vote last month blocking a trial.
Fachin heeded a request from Temer’s defense not to deliver the accusation to the lower house until after a supreme court plenary vote on the matter. The vote should be held before Wednesday.
The allegations are part of Brazil’s sprawling corruption probes that have resulted in former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s conviction and four pending trials; investigations and charges implicating three former presidents and dozens of members of Congress; and guilty verdicts against well over 100 powerful business and political figures.
Most of the schemes involve political kickbacks in return for contracts at government-run enterprises or cheap loans from Brazil’s state development bank.
The racketeering charge against Temer was based on the plea bargain testimony of Lucio Funaro, a businessman who accused the president and his closest aides in the ruling PMDB party of operating a criminal organization to collect bribes in exchange for political influence.
The obstruction of justice charge was based on testimony by Joesley Batista that Temer endorsed payments of hush money to try to keep Funaro from talking.
A short legislative agenda ahead of an election year, the absence of public pressure to oust Temer and the lack of any convincing replacement for him are also likely to weigh in the president’s favor.
“Given the short timetable, the general public apathy and lack of a viable alternative, it is quite possible that Brasilia will continue to punt this down the road,” said Matthew Taylor, a professor at the American University in Washington.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS