Eike Batista keeps silent at police questioning, to speak in court only
Brazil's business tycoon Eike Batista asserted his right to remain silent and speak only in court when he testified to police on Tuesday (Jan. 31), said his defense attorney Fernando Martins. The lawyer accompanied him to questioning for over three hours at the Organized Crime and Embezzlement Department of the Federal Police unit in Rio de Janeiro.
“The interview began late, and the usual procedure of the Federal Police and the Public Prosecution is to ask all the questions so if he wanted to invoke his right to remain silent he had to do so as each question was asked, that's why it took so long—but it didn't take as long as it's been reported,” the lawyer told Agência Brasil.
According to his lawyer, Batista will speak in court to “clarify any questions, any allegations. He is going to talk during the case. In fact there isn't a case right now.”
Eike Batista left the police building at 6:46pm escorted by four officers in an unmarked black car. Prosecutors Eduardo El Hage and Leonardo Cardoso de Freitas—who leads the Federal Prosecution Service's group in charge of the investigations known as “Calicut” and “Efficiency”, which are spin-off cases from the Car Wash corruption scandal—left earlier, shortly after 5pm.
According to Fernando Martins, the reason Batista stayed nearly two hours further after the prosecutors had left had to do with Federal Police proceedings.
“It was an internal Federal Police proceeding, maybe logistics or something, I wouldn't know. The questioning was over when the prosecutors left,” he said.
Habeas corpus
Eike Batista has been jailed since Monday (Jan. 30) at Bandeira Stampa penitentiary (also known as Bangu 9). His lawyer said that the Federal Court has not ruled on his requests for a habeas corpus and a transfer to another police unit in a different place.
The business tycoon is accused of money laundering in a corruption scandal that has also embroiled former Rio de Janeiro state governor Sérgio Cabral, who was already jailed when Batista was arrested. Along with Flávio Godinho, his right-hand man executive at Batista's EBX group, he is accused of paying $16.5 million to Cabral in exchange for unfair advantages in the group's projects and business dealings using a foreign bank .
Translated by Mayra Borges
Fonte: Eike Batista keeps silent at police questioning, to speak in court only
