Brazil: a minister of Jair Bolsonaro resigned who is the subject of an investigation for corruption

The Minister of the Environment of Brazil, Ricardo Salles, He resigned on Wednesday as part of an investigation against him for alleged involvement in a program to illegally export timber to the United States and Europe.

“I presented my resignation (to President Jair Bolsonaro), which was accepted,” he told reporters in Brasilia. The former civil servant was one of the most questioned ministers, not least because of the increase in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon and the dismantling of the environmental protection programs.

Salles also reported that He will be replaced by Joaquim Alvaro Pereira Leite, secretary of the Amazonian and Environmental Services of the Ministry of the Environment.

In late May, justice ordered the investigation of the former official for his alleged involvement in a program to illegally export timber to the United States and Europe., which he has always denied. Since then he has remained under pressure from public opinion and with rumors of his possible resignation.

Despite the criticism, He continued to have the public support of President Bolsonaro, who after the opening of the investigation declared that he was an “exceptional minister”, but that he encountered obstacles in carrying out his work due to certain “interested” sectors of the Prosecutor’s Office and “environmental Shiites”, as they usually define state environmental monitoring agencies. , like ICMbio and Ibama.

Indigenous peoples, academics and national and international environmental organizations They accused the Bolsonaro government, and in particular Minister Salles, of having favored the resumption of deforestation in this country. considers that under the administration the resources of the control bodies have been reduced and that the opening of the Amazon region to agricultural and mining activities has been welcomed.

Salles was also frowned upon by the agri-food sectors, considering that its environmental policy harms the international image of the country as an agro-exporting power.

The investigation

The Brazilian prosecutor’s office asked the Supreme Court to investigate the then Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, for alleged interference in investigations and audits of environmental crimes in the Amazon.

The request, signed by the Deputy Attorney General, Humberto Jacques de Medeiros, was based on a complaint lodged in mid-April by the then Federal Police Commissioner of Amazonas State Alexandre Saraiva, in which he notes “irregularities“In the conduct of the Minister and other portfolio officials.

Occasionally Saraiva reported that Salles and other authorities interfered in the investigations into Operation Handroanthus, which resulted in the Record seizure of 226,763 cubic meters of timber allegedly illegally mined in the Amazon, in addition to performing the “public defense of the loggers investigated on the operation”.

The prosecution pleaded Monday for a further investigation into the case, considering that in the files of the complaint presented by Saraiva they were indicated “various performance episodes of these servers“with the objective of”promote the regularization of irregularly exported cargoes”.

“This scenario shows, in general, the need further research facts reported to the Attorney General’s office and to the Federal Supreme Court, referring to the actions of the aforementioned political agent, ”Medeiros stressed.

In the document, the prosecutor asked the magistrate Carmen Lucie, case instructor, authorization for the Federal Police to take depositions from the portfolio holder and other persons mentioned, among other procedures. In case of authorization, This will be the second inquiry directly affecting Salles to be overseen by the Supreme Court.

(With information from AFP)

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