Former top Brazil prosecutor says successor, police chief slowing graft probes

Brasilia, December 1 (RHCAgencies) -- Three Senior Brazilian law enforcement officials, including the former prosecutor general, said new leaders of the federal police and prosecutors’ offices are curbing an anti-corruption drive that challenged centuries of impunity in Latin America’s biggest country.

Rodrigo Janot, who until mid-September was Brazil’s prosecutor general and remains an influential senior prosecutor, told Reuters news agency he believes that President Michel Temer, whom he charged on three different counts of corruption, appointed a new head of federal police specifically to “divert” graft investigations.

Separately, two other senior law enforcement officials said that Raquel Dodge, Janot’s replacement as prosecutor general, told some senior prosecutors in the capital Brasilia to shift away from corruption probes and stop talking publicly about anti-graft efforts.

Brazil’s crackdown on graft in recent years led to dozens of convictions of senior politicians, government officials and corporate executives.

The Brazilian Congress recently shielded Temer from corruption charges, and some investigators and prosecutors say that elected officials are finding ways to outmaneuver them, especially as they seek, before elections next year, to retain seats that give them constitutional safeguards against prosecution.

Temer, who has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, staved off prosecution largely because allies in the lower house of Congress, which must authorize charges against a sitting president, voted against it.

The vote outraged many Brazilians because some of those who voted against the charges in Congress are also being investigated. Temer will still face charges once he leaves federal elected office.

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