Brazilian ex-billionaire sentenced to 30 years prison

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Eike Batista, once the richest man in Brazil, was on Tuesday sentenced to 30 years in prison for corruption and money laundering over the massive corruption scandal at state oil giant Petrobras.

The 61-year-old was also fined 53 million reis ($13.6 million, 11.7 million euros) after he was found guilty by a Rio de Janeiro court of paying a $16.5 million bribe to the ex-governor of Rio, Sergio Cabral, allegedly through the fictitious sale of a gold mine.

Cabral is currently serving a prison sentence of more than 100 years following five convictions for graft.

Batista's lawyers have already said they will appeal.

He was arrested in January 2017 but released under house arrest three months later.

An emblem of Brazil's boom years, Batista amassed a fortune with investments in mining and oil that in 2012 put him in seventh place on Forbes's list of the world's wealthiest.

But by 2013 a downturn in the commodities market wiped out a fortune that had been estimated at $30 billion.

He later came under scrutiny by investigators in the vast "Car Wash" operation that revealed mass corruption by public officials linked to Petrobras.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Brazil's Rousseff scores court win in impeachment case

BRASILIA - Brazil's Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Congress must restart impeachment proceedings against Dilma Rousseff from scratch and overhauled the procedure, in a badly needed win for the embattled president.

In an 8-3 decision, the judges annulled an opposition-dominated impeachment commission established by secret ballot in the lower house last week and ordered the procedure be restarted in an open vote.

It also gave the final word on whether to open an impeachment trial to the Senate, where Rousseff has greater support.

Rousseff is accused of fudging the government's accounts during her re-election campaign last year.

The 68-year-old leftist maintains the budgeting maneuvers were accepted practice.

Under the court's ruling, a new commission to decide whether or not to impeach her must now be created in an open vote by the lower house.

If the commission recommends impeachment, the decision will then pass to the full lower house -- and then, the judges ruled, to the Senate.

The march towards the unpopular president's possible ouster was stalled by her allies in Congress, who say opposition legislators violated the constitution in their rush toward impeachment.

They claimed the impeachment commission illegally insisted on secret votes while picking its members, and that it was stacked with Rousseff opponents.

On December 8 the Supreme Court ordered the commission to freeze its work until the challenge was resolved.

The speaker of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha, oversaw the controversial session to form the commission and is an architect of the impeachment drive.

Cunha himself has been charged with taking millions of dollars in bribes.

The political crisis and a separate corruption scandal involving state oil giant Petrobras have exacerbated the malaise gripping Brazil, whose economy, the world's seventh largest, is mired in a deep recession.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Brazil hands down first sentences against Petrobras scandal businessmen

BRAZIL - A Brazilian judge on Monday handed down the first sentences against businessmen caught up in a huge corruption scandal centered around state oil company Petrobras.

Judge Sergio Moro sentenced former Camargo Correa construction company CEO Dalton Avancini and another top former executive, Eduardo Leite, to 15 years and 10 months prison.

They had been found guilty on charges including corruption and money laundering linked to a sprawling bribes-and-kickbacks scheme at Petrobras and major Brazilian construction businesses.

Previously, Petrobras executives have been sentenced in the case, which has also seen prosecutors investigating dozens of high-profile business executives and politicians.

Both Avancini and Leite could see their sentences converted into house arrest in exchange for having cooperated as state's witnesses.

Camargo Correa chairman Joao Auler was sentenced to nine years and six months in prison for corruption. Camargo recorded a turnover of $8.15 billion in 2014.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com