Federal Police Seek Detention of Rousseff and Mantega; STF Rejects Petition

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Federal Police (PF) requested Justice Edson Fachin, rapporteur for Operation Lava Jato in the Federal Supreme Court (STF), to temporarily detain former President Dilma Rousseff, former Finance Minister Guido Mantega, former senators Eunício Oliveira and Valdir Raupp, and Minister Vital do Rêgo Filho of the Federal Audit Court (TCU).

The requests – rejected by Justice Fachin – were made within the scope of an inquiry that ascertains alleged “buying and selling” of political support from the MDB party in favor of the PT party in the 2014 presidential elections.

The suspicions were raised in the plea bargaining denunciations of executive Ricardo Saud, informant in the J&F case, and Sérgio Machado, the former president of Transpetro. In his denunciation, Saud said that the MDB senators had been paid approximately R$46 million (US$12 million), requested by the PT.

According to the executive, although several donations have been official, this is an “undue advantage”, since leaders of the PT would be buying the support of PMDB party members for the 2014 elections to ensure the alliance between the two parties.

Machado, on the other hand, reported that the J&F group transferred R$40 million to MDB senators following a request from Mantega (then Minister of Finance), as a means to “buy the political support” of the MDB. The investigation was opened by Fachin on May 14th last year.

Relevance

In June this year, the PF forwarded to the Supreme Court a 218-page report containing a complete list of requests for temporary detention orders, searches and seizures, and the collection of depositions from suspects.

The PF submitted “a request for the temporary arrest of the most important suspects, as well as of those who were involved in the transfer and receipt in cash of the illicit amounts for the benefit of MDB senators, on the grounds that the detention of these individuals is instrumental in uncovering sources of evidence and obtaining information regarding the perpetrators and substance of the criminal offenses under investigation”.

The Federal Police executed a number of search and seizure warrants yesterday morning, in addition to the seizure of assets, ordered by Fachin.

“In this case, however, as previously noted, notwithstanding the plausibility of the investigative assumptions made by the police authority being satisfactorily demonstrated, the claim to restrict the freedom of movement of those investigated is not substantiated by the identification of specific behaviors that call for the need for such an extreme measure,” noted Fachin in his decision, when authoriing the operation on Tuesday.

“In this respect, it is conceivable to reference the opinion of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, pointing out that ‘there is no evidence that, while free, those investigated may hinder the execution of the search and seizure measures’. Given these considerations, I deny the requested temporary detention,” concluded the rapporteur of Lava Jato.

Defenses

EUGÊNIO ARAGÃO, DILMA’S DEFENSE COUNSEL:

“It should be noted that she is not among the individuals under investigation and has been summoned solely to clarify the case.”

EUNÍCIO OLIVEIRA’S SPOKESPERSON:

“Neither businessman Eunício Oliveira, nor any address or persons related to him, were the object of any lawsuits arising from Justice Luiz Edson Facchin’s decision. The former Senator, as always, is available to provide any clarifications that the Judiciary may deem necessary”.

Source: Estadão Conteúdo

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