Brazil Supreme Court Accepts Plea Deal for Rousseff Ally Amaral
Brazil's Supreme Court said on Tuesday it had accepted a plea agreement offered by prosecutors to Senator Delcídio do Amaral, a legislative ally of President Dilma Rousseff until he was arrested last year in a far-reaching corruption scandal.
Leaks of the plea deal in recent weeks to Brazilian media said that Amaral, of the ruling Workers' Party, told prosecutors that both Rousseff and former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had been aware of corruption at state-run energy company Petroleo Brasileiro SA.
Amaral, the reports said, also told prosecutors that Rousseff tried to intervene to get prosecutors to ease up on their investigation of a scandal that has ensnared dozens of top political and corporate leaders and threatens to topple her administration.
More than a million people marched in demonstrations across Brazil on Sunday, calling for Rousseff's ouster and in a show of support for the ongoing investigations, triggered by evidence of kickbacks by contractors to executives and political leaders in exchange for work with Petrobras, as the oil company is known.
Also on Tuesday, newsmagazine Veja said that Amaral in the plea agreement accused Rousseff aides of trying to pay him to keep quiet. The details of the plea deal as yet are not public and have not been confirmed by prosecutors or the court.
Both Rousseff and Lula have denied any wrongdoing. Neither Amaral nor his attorney were immediately available for comment.
Amaral was arrested in November by prosecutors citing evidence that he had tried to bribe a former Petrobras executive in exchange for his silence in the investigation. The court released Amaral from custody last month, shortly before news of a plea deal had been reported.
(Reporting by Maria Carolina Marcello and Lisandra Paraguassu)
