SAO PAULO, (Reuters) – Executives from Brazil’s second-largest engineering company, Andrade Gutierrez, have testified that the company paid suppliers for President Dilma Rousseff’s 2010 electoral campaign off the books, newspaper a Folha de S.Paulo reported yesterday.
The testimony, as part of a plea bargain by 11 executives, would be the first direct link between the widening ‘Operation Carwash’ investigation into bribes and political kickbacks at state-run oil company Petrobras and the election of Rousseff, the paper said.
The allegations may bolster the case of the main opposition party PSDB as it seeks to annul Rousseff’s 2014 re-election for using illegal funding, though Brazil’s top electoral court is unlikely to accept evidence from a previous election.
A source confirmed the Andrade Gutierrez executives had signed a plea deal that is being handled by Federal prosecutors as it involved politicians.
The Federal prosecutors’ office in Brasilia would not confirm the report and said it could not comment on plea deals until the Supreme Court approved them. Andrade Gutierrez declined to comment.
Folha reported that the executives said the engineering company contributed more than 5 million reais ($1.27 million) under the table to pay campaign debts run up by Rousseff’s Workers’ Party.
