Former Brazil house speaker Cunha sentenced to 15 years for graft
Source: Reuters
A federal court sentenced Brazil's former speaker of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha, to more than 15 years in prison on Thursday for corruption, making him the highest-profile political conviction yet in the "Operation Car Wash" scandal.
The former politician's defense team said they would appeal the decision but Cunha will remain imprisoned pending appeal.
Cunha, who drove the successful impeachment of former President Dilma Rousseff, was forced from his position as speaker in July and arrested in October on accusations he received millions in bribes from the purchase of an oil field in Benin by state-run oil company Petrobras.
Over 200 people have been charged in the "Operation Car Wash" probe, a far-reaching investigation that centers on bribes and political kickbacks from contracts at Petrobras. The Supreme Court is likely to approve soon the investigation of dozens of sitting politicians.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-corruption-cunha-idUSKBN1712DX?il=0
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Don't think for a minute that this magically exonerates Dilma or something...
Judi Lynn
(160,630 posts)The vicious, pro-dictatorship extreme right-wing in Cunha's House even dedicated their votes to impeach Dilma to the torturer who plied his evil trade against Dilma Rousseff for years while she was held in military prison for her anti-dictatorship activism.
Absolute evil, as sane people recognize.
For anyone who doesn't grasp why Dilma was impeached, take the time to do some research, and don't buy the right-wing crappola they used as their excuse to remove their enemy from her elected office after a couple of years of deeply-financed campaigning against her.
From a Guardian article posted at DU after the House impeachment:
This article is something right-wing clowns should not speed read, and jump to stupid conclusions.
From the article published by the Guardian, written so simply even a US corporate "news" fan can grasp it:
Eduardo Bolsonaro, his son and also a deputy, used his time at the microphone to honour the general responsible for the military coup in 1964..
Deputies were called one by one to the microphone by the instigator of the impeachment process, Cunha an evangelical conservative who is himself accused of perjury and corruption and one by one they condemned the president.
Yes, voted Paulo Maluf, who is on Interpols red list for conspiracy. Yes, voted Nilton Capixiba, who is accused of money laundering. For the love of God, yes! declared Silas Camara, who is under investigation for forging documents and misappropriating public funds. And yes, voted the vast majority of the more than 150 deputies who are implicated in crimes but protected by their status as parliamentarians.
From:
http://upload.democraticunderground.com/10141419155#post9
Also, please take the time to read Post #20, from the same thread, by reorg:
BRAZILS LOWER HOUSE of Congress on Sunday voted to impeach the countrys president, Dilma Rousseff, sending the removal process to the Senate. In an act of unintended though rich symbolism, the House member who pushed impeachment over the 342-vote threshold was Dep. Bruno Araújo, himself implicated by a document indicating he may have received illegal funds from the construction giant at the heart of the nations corruption scandal. Even more significantly, Araújo belongs to the center-right party PSDB, whose nominees have lost four straight national elections to Rousseffs moderate-left PT party, with the last ballot-box defeat delivered just 18 months ago, when 54 million Brazilians voted to re-elect Dilma as president.
Those two facts about Araújo underscore the unprecedentedly surreal nature of yesterdays proceedings in Brasília, capital of the worlds fifth-largest country. Politicians and parties that have spent two decades trying, and failing, to defeat PT in democratic elections triumphantly marched forward to effectively overturn the 2014 vote by removing Dilma on grounds that, as todays New York Times report makes clear, are, at best, dubious in the extreme. Even The Economist, which has long despised the PT and its anti-poverty programs and wants Dilma to resign, has argued that in the absence of proof of criminality, impeachment is unwarranted and looks like a pretext for ousting an unpopular president. ...
THE U.S. HAS been notably quiet about this tumult in the second-largest country in the hemisphere, and its posture has barely been discussed in the mainstream press. Its not hard to see why. The U.S. spent years vehemently denying that it had any role in the 1964 military coup that removed Brazils elected left-wing government, a coup that resulted in 20 years of a brutal, pro-U.S., right-wing military dictatorship. But secret documents and recordings emerged proving that the U.S. actively helped plot that coup, and the countrys 2014 Truth Commission report documented that the U.S. and U.K. aggressively supported the dictatorship and even trained Brazilian interrogators in torture techniques.
That U.S-supported coup and military dictatorship loom large over the current controversy. President Rousseff and her supporters explicitly call the attempt to remove her a coup. One prominent pro-impeachment deputado who is expected to run for president, the right-wing Jair Bolsonaro (whom The Intercept profiled last year), yesterday explicitly praised the military dictatorship and pointedly hailed Col. Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, the dictatorships chief torturer (notably responsible for Dilmas torture). Bolsonaros son, Eduardo, also in the House, said he was casting his impeachment vote for the military men of 64?: those who carried out the coup and imposed military rule.
https://theintercept.com/2016/04/18/after-vote-to-remove-brazils-president-key-opposition-figure-holds-meetings-in-washington/
Judi Lynn
(160,630 posts)Brazil ex-speaker Eduardo Cunha jailed for 15 years
6 hours ago
A judge has sentenced the former speaker of the lower house of the Brazilian Congress, Eduardo Cunha, to 15 years and four months in prison.
Cunha was found guilty of corruption, money laundering and tax evasion.
He led the impeachment process against President Dilma Rousseff and was one of Brazil's most powerful politicians before his arrest in October.
Judge Sergio Moro said he should be held in custody even while appeals are under way.
'No bigger crime'
Judge Moro argued that, even though Cunha no longer held political office, there was a risk he could continue engaging in corruption, intimidation and extortion.
More:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-39442005
Judi Lynn
(160,630 posts)Former lower house speaker Eduardo Cunha convicted over role in Car Wash corruption scandal and given 15 years in prison, which could be appealed
Reuters in São Paulo
Thursday 30 March 2017 13.43 EDT
Eduardo Cunha, the former head of Brazils lower house of congress, has been sentenced to more than 15 years in prison for his role in the vast Car Wash corruption scandal.
Cunhas conviction led to one of the stiffest penalties handed down to such a senior politician since the end of the dictatorship era in 1985, but public satisfaction with the judgment will be mixed with concern that he could yet win an appeal and that many other powerful figures accused of similar crimes remain unpunished.
Sergio Moro, a Curitiba lower court judge, found Cunha a rightwing evangelical Christian guilty of corruption, money laundering and currency law evasion in connection with a $1.6m bribe he received from a deal by the state-run oil firm Petrobras to buy exploration rights in Benin. The judgment also noted a pending case in Switzerland related to $2.3m stashed in a secret bank account in the European country.
The responsibility of a federal parliamentarian is enormous, and so, therefore, is his guilt when he commits crimes. There can be no more serious offence than the betrayal for personal gain of a parliamentary mandate and the sacred trust of the people, the judged noted in his ruling.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/30/brazil-eduardo-cunha-guilty-prison-dilma-rousseff-impeachment
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)peacebuzzard
(5,183 posts)the wildlife and the domestic animals that are forgotten. The majesty of the Brazilian jungles and magnificent waterways once termed as the lungs of the earth are also left with no defenses. All these vital parts of a necessary ecosystem has lost to the greedy thirst of power and money. Venezuela has been a mayhem as well with its tragic descent into an abyss. Hard to say which is worse is correct.