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Rio governor Wilson Witzel suspended during corruption probe
Source: Associated Press
Brazilian state governor suspended during corruption probe
By RICARDO COLETTA
August 29, 2020
BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — A Brazilian court has temporarily removed Rio de Janeiro’s governor from office due to corruption charges as authorities on Friday said they were carrying out scores of raids and more than a dozen arrests in the case.
Brazil’s main prosecutor’s office said Wilson Witzel, a former federal judge, was removed from office for 180 days while being investigated.
The agency also said it was raiding his official office and residence, as well as the residence of the vice governor, who by law succeeds him while he is suspended. In all, it said there were 72 search and seizure warrants in six states, the federal district and Uruguay, as well as 17 arrest warrants.
The order by the Superior Court of Justice, Brazil’s second-highest court, can be appealed to the Supreme Court.
-snip-
By RICARDO COLETTA
August 29, 2020
BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — A Brazilian court has temporarily removed Rio de Janeiro’s governor from office due to corruption charges as authorities on Friday said they were carrying out scores of raids and more than a dozen arrests in the case.
Brazil’s main prosecutor’s office said Wilson Witzel, a former federal judge, was removed from office for 180 days while being investigated.
The agency also said it was raiding his official office and residence, as well as the residence of the vice governor, who by law succeeds him while he is suspended. In all, it said there were 72 search and seizure warrants in six states, the federal district and Uruguay, as well as 17 arrest warrants.
The order by the Superior Court of Justice, Brazil’s second-highest court, can be appealed to the Supreme Court.
-snip-
Read more: https://apnews.com/f37153ec57a2ddc857add22fb0e0a691
Wilson Witzel gives a press conference after a court temporarily removed the former federal judge from his office of Rio de Janeiro Governor due to corruption charges, at the Palacio de Laranjeiras governors residence in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, Aug. 28, 2020. Investigators accuse Witzel of participating in a scheme involving fraud in public contracts to benefit companies linked to him and others under investigation. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)
______________________________________________________________________
Source: Washington Post
Rio’s governor suspended amid widening corruption probe involving Brazil’s pandemic response
By Terrence McCoy
8/28/2020, 11:29:34 a.m.
RIO DE JANEIRO — The governor of Rio de Janeiro state was suspended from office Friday by a Brazilian court as part of a corruption probe into alleged kickbacks amid the state's disastrously chaotic response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The accusations against Wilson Witzel, a critic of President Jair Bolsonaro, was another blow to Brazil's leadership as it struggles with the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic amid mounting suspicion that some officials have used it to line their own pockets.
It also illustrated how the coronavirus pandemic in Brazil, a country with a lengthy and notorious history of corruption, has been a bonanza for grifters and fraudsters. As states emptied their coffers to combat the gravest health crisis in national history, which has killed more than 118,000 Brazilians, officials across the country saw an opportunity to get rich, prosecutors allege.
Prosecutors charge that Witzel was at the “top of the pyramid” of a corrupt scheme of bribes and kickbacks for government contracts that included projects aimed at combating the coronavirus in Brazil, which has the world’s second-highest number of confirmed cases at nearly 3.8 million.
-snip-
By Terrence McCoy
8/28/2020, 11:29:34 a.m.
RIO DE JANEIRO — The governor of Rio de Janeiro state was suspended from office Friday by a Brazilian court as part of a corruption probe into alleged kickbacks amid the state's disastrously chaotic response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The accusations against Wilson Witzel, a critic of President Jair Bolsonaro, was another blow to Brazil's leadership as it struggles with the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic amid mounting suspicion that some officials have used it to line their own pockets.
It also illustrated how the coronavirus pandemic in Brazil, a country with a lengthy and notorious history of corruption, has been a bonanza for grifters and fraudsters. As states emptied their coffers to combat the gravest health crisis in national history, which has killed more than 118,000 Brazilians, officials across the country saw an opportunity to get rich, prosecutors allege.
Prosecutors charge that Witzel was at the “top of the pyramid” of a corrupt scheme of bribes and kickbacks for government contracts that included projects aimed at combating the coronavirus in Brazil, which has the world’s second-highest number of confirmed cases at nearly 3.8 million.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/brazil-coronavirus-corruption-rio/2020/08/28/fe213756-e918-11ea-970a-64c73a1c2392_story.html