Only 4 of the 50 Political Targets in Lava Jato's Operation Have Been Tried

03/06/2017 - 11h15

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RUBENS VALENTE

FROM BRASÍLIA

Announced with impact, the first list of those being investigated by the Public Prosecutor's Office (under the command of Rodrigo Janot) in the Lava Jato's Operation (Car Wash), a total of 27 probes opened in March of 2015, have been of little legal consequence up to now.

Only 8% of the 50 politicians investigated were tried after a Federal Supreme Court ruling and none had been sentenced before last Friday.

The release of a second "Janot list" is expected in the next few days, now as a result of the plea bargainings of 77 current and former Odebrecht executives.

Two ministers (Eliseu Padilha and Moreira Franco) and PMDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party) and PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party) senators are linked to the new probe requests.

Two years ago, the investigations were initiated through testimonials obtained from collaboration agreements.

The list announcement has been highly anticipated. Over the course of several months, Janot managed the issue in secret.

Minister Teori Zavascki, the then Lava Jato rapporteur, collected all of the requests and authorized 25 probes. The Superior Court of Justice opened two additional probes.

Two years later, 40 percent of the 27 investigations have been filed away, completely or in part, or attached to another lead, and another 17 cases remain inconclusive.

The probes involved 50 politicians with privileged jurisdiction in the Supreme Court and the Superior Court of Justice, some of them former parliamentarians, who were followed in the courts as part of the investigation.

Only four of the probed individuals were tried: former deputy Eduardo Cunha (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party), Senator Gleisi Hoffmann (Workers' Party), and deputies Nelson Meurer (Progressive Party) and Aníbal Gomes (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party).

Translated by SUGHEY RAMIREZ

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