Brazil’s government unveiled on Monday a series of measures to ease financing for infrastructure projects, as President Dilma Rousseff struggles to increase investment in a deep recession.
Advertisement
Sources with the state prosecutor’s office, which also were said to have requested the preventative arrest of 15 other people, refused to comment on the media reports at a Thursday news conference, in which the prosecutors detailed charges they filed against Lula on Wednesday.
Rousseff also said there is “no real basis” to calls for her to resign, which have mounted amid a swirling corruption scandal and impeachment push.
Ms Rousseff said she had been democratically elected and had no intention of going.
Investigators have been looking into a scheme where insiders at state-controlled oil company Petrobras and contractors allegedly raked-off vast sums from inflated construction and service contracts. Lula denies the charges.
She came out in defense of Lula, her once wildly popular predecessor.
Under Brazilian law, cabinet ministers can only be tried before the Supreme Court.
A former steelworker and labor leader, Lula led Brazil through an economic boom from 2003 to 2011.
Rousseff chaired the board of Petrobras during the Lula administration, when prosecutors say the company was bled for billions of dollars in rigged contracts and kickbacks to executives, politicians and parties in the ruling coalition.
Prosecutors say they suspect the apartment in question was given to Lula as a bribe by OAS, one of the companies accused in the scandal.
Advertisement
The ex-president is suspected in a separate federal investigation of accepting illegal payments from companies implicated in the Petrobras scandal in the form of donations to his foundation and property renovations.
