BRAZIL-PETROBRAS/CORRUPTION-CUNHA Brazil's lower house speaker says he will not leave his post following corruption charges

Record ID: 143089

  • Title: BRAZIL-PETROBRAS/CORRUPTION-CUNHA Brazil's lower house speaker says he will not leave his post following corruption charges
  • Date: 21st August 2015
  • Summary: RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS EXTERIORS OF PETROBRAS BUILDINGS
  • Embargoed: 5th September 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Brazil
  • Country: Brazil
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAAT1KPHXI6LOKNZD5B9DHEXZMT
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDIT CONTAINS VIDEO THAT WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    Speaker of Brazil's lower house of Congress Eduardo Cunha said on Friday (August 21) he would not leave his position before his term is up, a day after federal prosecutors charged him and former President Fernando Collor de Melo in a widening political kickback scandal linked to contracts with state-run oil company Petrobras.
    Cunha, the first sitting politician charged in Brazil's largest-ever corruption scandal, was charged with both corruption and money laundering, accused of taking a $5 million bribe on contracts for two drillships, according to the federal prosecutor's office.
    The country's top prosecutor filed the charges against Cunha at the Supreme Court, where he will face trial if he is indicted. Elected officials and cabinet ministers can only be tried by the highest court in Brazil.
    If convicted, Congress must decide whether to strip Cunha of his political rights and remove him as speaker, an outcome he said on Friday would not happen.
    "There is no point in speculating over what I am going to do or stop doing. I am not going to retaliate against anyone, much less will I give up any right or responsibility of mine. There is no possibility whatsoever of my not continuing at the front of the lower house during the mandate that I was elected to serve," said Cunha in response to the charges.
    A member of Brazil's largest party, known as the PMDB, Cunha quit President Dilma Rousseff's coalition last month to join opposition lawmakers seeking her impeachment. The corruption charges will weaken Cunha's offensive against the president.
    "'Resignation' does not enter into my vocabulary, and nor will it, you can be sure of this. 'Cowardice' also plays no part in my vocabulary, and nor will it. So I am absolutely relaxed," Cunha added on Friday.
    The prosecutor's office said it also laid charges against former President Fernando Collor de Melo, but it did not specify the charges. Collor's name had been on the Supreme Court's list of people under investigation in the Petrobras scandal.
    Collor was president from 1990 to 1992, when he resigned hours before his certain impeachment on corruption charges in an influence-peddling scandal. He has been a senator for his state of Alagoas since 2007.
    Rousseff, whose popularity was shown in a recent Datafolha poll to have dropped below that of Collor's pre-impeachment, declined to comment on the charges.
    "The presidency of this country and the executive do not offer any form of analysis on investigations," Rousseff said on Thursday.
    The corruption scandal centres on state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as Petrobras is formally known. A defendant in the case, consultant Julio Camargo, said in plea bargain testimony that he paid Cunha the $5 million bribe.
    Cunha has denied the accusation and accuses Rousseff's government of framing him. Three dozen sitting lawmakers are under investigation in connection with allegations they received bribe money paid by engineering firms to obtain contracts with Petrobras, the country's largest company.
    Camargo and Nestor Cervero, a former international director at Petrobras, have been convicted of organising bribes from South Korean shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries Co in exchange for contracts to build two drillships, the Petrobras 10000, which was ordered by Petrobras and Mitsui & Co in 2006, and the Vitoria 10000, ordered by Petrobras in 2007.
    The news of the charges came on the day of nationwide protests against impeachment and for democracy, with many also calling for Cunha to be removed from office.
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