Rousseff's defense to request that yet more witnesses be heard

In a statement made Tuesday (Apr. 4), former President Dilma Rousseff's defense attorneys said they would file motions for yet more witnesses to be heard in the trial about illegal funding in Rousseff and Temer's campaign. The case is an attempt to invalidate Rousseff and Temer's ticket, which won the 2014 presidential elections in Brazil. Deliberations were postponed Tuesday (4) after the full panel of the Superior Electoral Court allowed four more witnesses to be heard.

In practice, the evidentiary stage was reopened, and defense attorneys may ask Judge Herman Benjamin, rapporteur in the case, to take further action for the production of new evidence.

“We're resuming the evidentiary stage now with these four witnesses. There can't be an evidentiary stage cut in half, so if this stage was reopened for four, we'll certainly let other witnesses be heard,” said lawyer Flávio Caetano, a member of Rousseff's defense team. “We'd already made the request, and now we've renewed it in this new evidentiary stage,” he stated.

On Tuesday, the full panel of the electoral court granted permission to just one of the 14 extra testimonies that had been requested by Rousseff's defense: that of former Finance Minister Guido Mantega, allegedly named in plea bargain statements by former executives from construction company Odebrecht as middleman in the transfer of undeclared funds to Rousseff's 2014 presidential campaign.

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira