While the case has yet to be heard, Supreme Court of Justice Judge Miriam Germán Brito alerted early on her concern that the Attorney General has not prepared well the cases for those accused of taking bribes in the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht scandal. The presiding judge of the second penal hall of the Supreme Court said that there is evidence that the Public Ministry has had difficulties in proving the accusations and warned that if this is not improved they will have difficulties in securing convictions when the cases go to the final hearing.
The Public Ministry responded saying they had eight months to prepare the case.
As reported in Listín Diario, the judge said that going by what the Public Ministry has submitted as the basis for the arrests and pre-trial measures “one could argue that there will be difficulties to prove the accusations. If prosecutors do not strengthen these cases during pre-trail discovery and investigation, it is possible that there will not be sufficient evidence to convict the accused.
Germán warned the prosecutors initially have based the bulk of their case on testimony given in Brazil by witnesses who reached deals with Brazilian prosecutors, but that these statements lack firm or precise information on the specific activities of wrongdoing supposedly committed by the accused. She said there is an abundance of imprecise testimony that begins with, “I believe… or it appears that…”, and in some cases, there are even denials of wrongdoing.
She noted that in the case of a person who served as the middleman for the allegedly illegal transactions, that there is no record of transfer of funds from that intermediary to an individual who is accused of accepting a bribe.
German stressed she had made similar comments in the past during news conferences, interviews and through her dissenting opinion that the hypothesis of the Public Ministry is not in itself evidence and that evidence that is presented must be supported by facts.
The judge spoke after announcing changes to pre-trial conditions for those accused in the Odebrecht bribes case.
Germán in a previous case had pointed to errors in the preparation by state prosecutors of the Felix Bautista corruption case that also fell apart despite a mountain of evidence against the Senator.
Read more in Spanish:
Listin Diario
El Dia
10 July 2017
