Rousseff broke no laws, impeachment trial hears

Suspended Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff’s former economy minster testified Saturday that Rousseff did not break any laws justifying impeachment, as her trial closed in on next week’s climax.
Rousseff, 68, is accused of taking illegal state loans to help bridge budget shortfalls and mask the true state of the economy during her 2014 reelection campaign.
The one-time Marxist guerrilla, who was imprisoned and tortured under Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1970s, says the charges are trumped up and amount to a rightwing coup.
Former economy minister Nelson Barbosa and Rio State University law professor Ricardo Lodi were the final defense witnesses brought to testify that Rousseff did not break the law or harm the economy, which is now in deep recession.
“There is nothing remotely illegal,” Barbosa said. “You cannot act retroactively with a new interpretation of the law.”
The same argument was delivered Friday by a first batch of Rousseff witnesses who said that such budgetary maneuvers have long been common practice and that Brazil’s economic decline was entirely unrelated.
Her accusers laid out their case on the trial’s opening day Thursday, arguing that Rousseff was criminally irresponsible and helped run once booming Brazil into the ground.
Tension is building ahead of Monday when Rousseff, from the leftist Workers’ Party, will take the stand for the first time and face her accusers.
She will be accompanied by her mentor and predecessor in the presidency, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Source: Arab News