Temer's Lawyers Deliver Defense and Compare Former Prosecutor General to a 'Gunman'

10/05/2017 - 12h09

On Wednesday, October 4, the lawyers of President Michel Temer delivered his defense in a document that contained escalating accusations against the country's former Prosecutor General Rodrigo Janot, who is compared to a "gunman" with "immoral and indecent behavior."

The document has 89 pages and refutes the second accusation filed in the Supreme Court by Janot, who accused Temer of being the leader of a criminal organization and obstructing justice.

After the defense presented its arguments, the Commission of Constitution and Justice will now have up to five plenary sittings to vote a report, which could accept or deny the continuation of the accusation's proceedings. The report will then be voted by the Lower House.

It is expected that the final voting will take place some time near October 25.

The accusation also includes government ministers Eliseu Padilha (Presidential Chief of Staff), Moreira Franco (General Secretariat) and former PMDB congressmen Eduardo Cunha (RJ), Henrique Alves (RN), Geddel Vieira Lima (BA) and Rodrigo Rocha Loures (PR).

The Lower House blocked the first accusation filed in August.

At first the president's lawyers, Eduardo Carnelós and Roberto Soares Garcia, inverted the accusation and said that members of the Prosecutor General's Office, led by Janot, "conspired" with JBS informers to build the accusation, classified as invalid.

The president's defense believed that the accusation aimed to criminalize Brazilian politics as a whole. "That is the accusation's backbone: all political activities are contaminated."

Translated by THOMAS MUELLO

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	Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters
	Brazil's President Michel Temer speaks during a press statement at the Planalto Palace, in Brasilia