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Spotlight: Leaked recording reveals Brazilian minister plotted against corruption probe

Xinhua, May 24, 2016 Adjust font size:

A telephone recording released on Monday in Brazil shows that Minister of Planning Romero Juca and former President of oil company Transpetro Sergio Machado discussed stopping the Operation Lava Jato, a sweeping investigation into the Petrobras corruption ring.

The transcript, lasting one hour and 15 minutes, was recorded in March and was published on Monday by the daily Folha de Sao Paulo.

According to the newspaper, the recording was made secretly by Brazil's prosecutor general.

Juca is the main architect in the Senate of the suspension of Dilma Rousseff and one of the leaders of the interim government of Michel Temer.

According to the transcript, Machado went to the leaders of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) to try and stymie the investigation against him.

"We have to stop this. We have to change the government to stop this bloodshed," Juca can be heard as saying with Machado responding that a Temer government would protect those being investigated.

"I think Rousseff has to be removed or quit. Removing her would be sweeter. Michel (Temer) could create a national union government and make a deal to protect Lula and protect everyone. The country would return to calm," added Machado.

Transpetro is a subsidiary of Petrobras, the largest company in Brazil.

Juca is also heard to comment that Temer will be a "solution" for the difficulties facing the PMDB and that, without that, "everybody is set to fall."

Machado, who is a member of the opposition Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), replied that "the first to fall will be Aecio (Neves)", the PSDB presidential candidate who was defeated by Rousseff in 2014.

"Aecio is no shape. Who doesn't know Aecio's schemes," Juca says on the recording.

In response to the leak, Juca's lawyer, Antonio Carlos Almeida de Castro, issued a statement that his client "had never thought to interfere in any way" with the investigation and that the recording contained nothing illegal.

Following the leak, numerous Brazilian media and politicians told Temer to fire Juca, including senators who had supported Rousseff's impeachment.

Senator Alvaro Dias, from the Green Party (PV), told the press that Juca's position raised suspicions about the entire Temer government and demanded that all ministers being investigated by Lava Jato be removed.

Furthermore, the influential O Globo daily published an editorial entitled "Temer must fire Juca."

"The content which has been revealed, and which has not been denied by the minister, makes his presence in the government unviable. The interim president could invalidate his mandate if he keeps Juca," it read. Endit