Brazil prosecutor asks to investigate President Rousseff

PanARMENIAN.Net - Brazil's top prosecutor requested that President Dilma Rousseff be investigated for trying to obstruct a sweeping corruption investigation involving state-run oil firm Petrobras, local media reported late on Tuesday, May 3, Reuters says.

An investigation could well mark the political end for the beleaguered leader of the world's seventh-largest economy as it would be the first time that Rousseff would be directly implicated in Brazil's biggest-ever graft case.

She is already likely to be suspended from office as early as next week on unrelated charges of breaking budgetary laws. Globo News, Brazil's largest media conglomerate, along with the Estado de S.Paulo and Folha de S.Paulo newspapers reported the request made by the prosecutor at close to midnight on Tuesday.

The request will be analyzed by Supreme Court justice Teori Zavascki and is not public because it is based on recorded phone calls between Rousseff and former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, news site G1 reported.

Federal Judge Sergio Moro in March made public taped phone conversations between Rousseff and Lula that fed opposition claims that Rousseff had tried to name Lula as her chief of staff in order to shield him from prosecution.