[Soulflytribe]

This was the Goverment's most authoritarian maneuver since the brazilian re-democratization in 1989.
This Judge in the article said today that "Brazil is not Venezuela where the president can arrest judges who he doesn't like", what made the Venezuelan Government write a public letter of disapproval (unfortunately there is no article in english about this yet).


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Top judge accuses Brazil ex-president of pressure

The Associated Press
Published: Tuesday, May 29, 2012 at 3:13 p.m.

BRASILIA, Brazil - A judge on Brazil's high court is accusing former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of pressuring him to set aside a planned trial of the biggest scandal of his administration.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20120529/API/1205290841

The accusation by Judge Gilmar Mendes of the Supreme Federal Tribunal comes as the court prepares for an August trial of 38 people implicated in the scandal, in which legislators allegedly were paid to vote for the administration's pet projects.

The "mensalao" or "big allowance" scandal erupted during Silva's first term in 2005 and caused a number of officials to resign. Silva was never implicated and in 2010 ended eight years in power with high popularity ratings.

Mendes' accusation appeared over the weekend in Veja magazine. Silva vigorously denied the accusation in a written declaration.

[Dark Funeral]

Veja, the magazine, is under investigation for its ties with organized crime in Brazil, Mendes, the judge, is also a suspect, it seems that their goal is to stop the investigations which are being carried out by a Congress commission, which have thus far uncover relations between politicians and the media with the organized crime, involving many representatives, a governor, and a senator, Demostenes Torres, who was impeached by the senate. That is not the first time Mendes goes out throwing accusations with no proof. A few years back, he - along with the former senator Demostenes Torres, impeached for his association with the organized crime - claimed to have had their telephones bugged, and demanded an investigation (qhich concluded that there was nothing). Mendes used this episode to alert the dangers of the "police state" which was being created, an accusation that helped the condemned white collar banker, Daniel Dantas (condemned in Brazil, the US and the UK on many charges of money laundry and fraud)to void thousands of hours of recorded proof of his crimes.