The lawyer of Carlos Piccini, in preventive custody in the Embraer corruption case, said on Thursday, 27 April 2017, that the Anti Administrative Corruption Prosecution Agency (PEPCA) is covering up the names of the persons who received the US$3.5 million bribes to ensure the approval and purchase of the eight Super Tucano aircraft.
Piccini is the only person who has been jailed as a result of the case. He has been in preventive custody for seven months at Najayo Jail. Former Minister of Armed Forces Rafael Peña Antonio, also investigated in the case, was released from jail on 19 August 2016. Businessmen Daniel Aquino Méndez and Daniel Aquino Hernández, also named in the case, were released after agreeing to wear electronic bracelets and be available for questioning.
Lawyer Alejandro Tejada told the press he has requested that the Third Instruction Court order PEPCA to deliver the proof gathered during the course of the investigation into the bribes for the aircraft procurement.
“The Public Ministry is purposefully not following the trail of the US$3.5 million that supposedly were delivered in bribes. They have the names and the Public Ministry says there are persons who can only be tried by the Supreme Court of Justice. Then we want to know who those persons are,” he said.
“The Public Prosecutor’s Office obviously was pursuing the $ 3.5 million that was supposed to be handed over for bribes. They have the names and the Public Ministry says that there are people who need privileged jurisdiction, so we need to know what those people are, “Tejada said. He complained that the Public Ministry is only prosecuting the company that supposedly received US$100,000, also General Rafael Peña Antonio who was Minister of the Armed Forces at the time, and aviation colonel Piccini.
The lawyer said that the Public Ministry is hiding the identities of the person who received US$2.5 million and US$920,000 in bribes. He said his defendant did not receive any bribe money. Judge Danilo Amador is in charge of the case.
Read more in Spanish:
El Nacional
28 April 2017
