Brazil’s top prosecutor requests arrests of key politicians

RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazil’s top prosecutor has asked the country’s highest court to arrest senior political allies of acting President Michel Temer for allegedly obstructing a corruption probe into state oil company Petrobras, a leading media outlet reported on Tuesday.

TV Globo said that Attorney General Rodrigo Janot is seeking the arrests of former president Jose Sarney, former planning minister and current Sen. Romero Juca, lower house Speaker Eduardo Cunha and Senate head Renan Calheiros. All four politicians belong to Temer’s centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, or PMDB, and performed key roles in suspending President Dilma Rousseff from office in early May.

The Supreme Federal Tribunal Justice Teori Zavascki will decide on the request. Only the high court can arrest or try elected officials.

Janot and the high court’s press office declined to comment on the media report.

The case is based on audio recordings in which the politicians allegedly discuss legislation that would limit the impact of the ongoing Petrobras investigation. That probe has already ensnared many of their colleagues across the ideological spectrum.

“It’s impossible to stop the Car Wash probe” at this point, said Sergio Praca, a political science professor at Fundacao Getulio Vargas, a university in Rio, referring to formal name of the Petrobras investigation. “Brazilians have come to expect it will continue.”

Calheiros said the reported requests for him and the others to be arrested were “disproportional and abusive.” Speaking at the start of a Tuesday Senate session, he told colleagues that the body “will not be dragged into this crisis, it will be the solution.”

Sarney said in a statement that he has been left “stunned, outraged and upset.” Because of his age, the 86-year-old would be placed under house arrest with an ankle monitoring device if Zavascki decides the charges are valid. The other three would be jailed.

Both Cunha and Juca have labeled the report as “absurd.”

Cunha was earlier suspended from his duties for obstruction of justice in the same case.

Juca was forced two weeks ago to take a leave of absence because of the audios recorded in the case by an executive of another state owned oil company, Transpetro. The senator allegedly suggested in the recordings that Rousseff’s impeachment could help block the corruption probe at Petrobras.

Temer could struggle to hold on to power if Zavascki decides to arrest his allies.

At least 54 of 81 senators will have to vote in favour for Rousseff to be permanently removed from the presidency on the accusation that she broke fiscal laws.

Rousseff has repeatedly argued she did nothing wrong, insisting that the push to remove her was to tamp down the Petrobras investigation, which she had refused to do while in office.

The Senate impeachment commission says her trial could end in mid-August while Brazil is hosting the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Chief Justice Ricardo Lewandowski will make the final decision.

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Associated Press writer Peter Prengaman contributed reporting from Buenos Aires, Argentina.