TEMER IN TROUBLE AGAIN
Police have ‘solid evidence’ of Brazilian president benefiting from bribe funds
BRAZIL’S federal police on Tuesday said there was solid evidence embattled President Michel Temer received bribes, a legal development that could see him suspended from office.
In a report, the Federal Supreme Court said Temer benefited from bribe funds, even if he did so by using someone else to collect or deposit the bribes.
Temer has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
But Brazil’s top court said it had accumulated enough evidence of bribes being paid to merit an investigation into Temer for “passive corruption”.
Prosecutor Rodrigo Janot will use the report as the foundation of the corruption case against the president.
“Faced with silence from the president and his former assistant, there is irrefutable evidence... showing strongly that passive corruption (on Temer’s part) took place,” the document said.
The report referred to the president’s relationship with suspended lawmaker Rodrigo Rocha Loures, who is in jail.
It alleges that Rocha Loures accepted bribes from JBS, a Brazilian meatpacking company, on Temer’s behalf.
Temer’s special adviser was filmed receiving a suitcase filled with a US$150,000 (RM643,000) payoff from a JBS executive.
The president could be suspended if twothirds of Congress votes to give a green light to the corruption investigation against the president. AFP