Off the wire
• Interview: Chilean minister calls for closer trade ties with China  • 180 chess players to compete at int'l championship in Vietnam  • Argentine engineer builds trash-eating robot with discarded parts  • Abe to follow court-mediated settlement over Okinawa base relocation feud  • Proposed bill to provide clearer lines for China's filmmaking: spokeswoman  • Indian stocks open higher  • NASA aims to launch record-breaking balloon flight in New Zealand  • 2nd LD-Writethru: U.S. militarizing South China Sea: spokesperson  • China to push forward law-based taxation: NPC spokesperson  • Agenda set for China's legislative session  
You are here: 　 Home

Brazil's Supreme Court gives go-ahead to trial of Congress leader

Xinhua, March 4, 2016 Adjust font size:

Brazil's Supreme Court on Thursday voted unanimously to approve a trial of Eduardo Cunha, president of the lower house of Congress for passive corruption and money laundry.

Under Brazilian law, charges against federal congressmen and other top government officials can be filed and judged only by the Supreme Court.

However, the judges did not set a date for the trial and said they have not yet made a decision on whether Cunha should be stripped off his position in the Chamber of Deputies.

Brazilian Attorney General Rodrigo Janot earlier asked the Supreme Court to remove Cunha from his position. Janot's office and the federal police have accused Cunha of receiving at least 5 million U.S. dollars in bribes involving a contract by state oil company Petrobras.

Cunha is also the target of an ethics investigation within the Chamber of Deputies, which could see him unseated if he is proved to have links to the Petrobras corruption ring.

Cunha, who has led the lower house of Congress since January 2015, is a member of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, the country's largest opposition party.

In December, Cunha approved the start of impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff for covering up suspected financial irregularities within her government in 2014 and 2015. The Supreme Court later froze the process due to procedural errors. Endi