BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s top court has approved a request by prosecutors to split the investigation of dozens of politicians implicated in the sprawling Petrobras corruption scandal by grouping them by the main parties that prosecutors allege received kickbacks.
The separation is bad news for President Michel Temer because it will focus the investigation directly on politicians of his Bra-zilian Democratic Move-ment Party (PMDB).
In a decision made public yesterday, Supreme Court Justice Teori Zavascki agreed to the request by Brazil’s chief prosecutor Rodrigo Janot that the unwieldy investigation be divided into four probes focusing on the Workers Party (PT), which was ousted from government in August, the Progressive Party (PP) and the PMDB in the Senate and in the lower chamber.
“The Car Wash investigation was so big and each group had its own way of operating in the Petrobras graft scheme that it was more efficient to investigate them separately,” a spokeswoman for Janot said.
