Members of Brazil’s Joint Parliamentary Investigatory Commission (CPMI) on the Post Office will travel to the United States sometime before the end of January to try to obtain confidential documents on advertising executive Duda Mendonça’s Düsseldorf account and the accounts that provided it with funds.
Duda Mendonça’s publicity work for candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been considered vital for his election as president after three failed campaigns.
The information that a mission will be going to the US was furnished by the president of the CPMI, senator Delcídio Amaral from the ruling Workers Party, of Mato Grosso do Sul state.
The intention is to approach the Justice Department, in Washington, and the New York district attorney’s office, as well as alternative agencies. "We will obtain at least what we need to cross-check information," Amaral believes.
Last year, the Brazilian Ministry of Justice’s Department of Asset Recovery and International Judicial Cooperation (DRCI) received information about financial activity in the Düsseldorf account.
The Brazilian government requested permission from the US Justice Department to break the confidentiality of the Düsseldorf account and 17 other accounts that provided it with funds. The documents were turned over to the Federal Police and the Federal Public Defense Ministry.
The national secretary of Justice, Cláudia Chagas, informed that the documents are confidential and that the US government recommended that the information contained in them not be leaked, since this could hamper the ongoing investigations.
In testimony before the CPMI on the Post Office, Duda Mendonça said that his Düsseldorf company’s Bahamas account received "unreported" payments from the Workers Party (PT) 2002 presidential campaign fund.
Agência Brasil