Brazil's centre-right former president Fernando Collor de Mello (1990-1992) was sentenced on Wednesday 31 May to eight years and ten months in prison for corruption by Brazil's Supreme Court, in connection with the "Express Wash" scandal involving construction companies.

The first Brazilian head of state elected by direct universal suffrage after the military dictatorship, Fernando Collor de Mello, 73, is accused of having received 20 million reais (about 3.8 million euros) in bribes from 2010 to 2014, when he was a senator.

According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, about forty payments were made to facilitate "irregularly" the signing of contracts between a construction company and a subsidiary of the public oil company Petrobras.

On Thursday, eight of Brazil's ten Supreme Court judges ruled in favor of his conviction. The judge reporting the case, Edson Fachin, ruled that the former president had used "his political influence to facilitate the signing of contracts" and had evoked a sentence of up to 33 years in prison.

Bolsonaro's support

The facts "proven" during the investigation are "extremely serious" and "depict the harmful misuse of public functions for personal and patrimonial enrichment," said Edson Fachin Wednesday, on the last day of the trial. His defense denied all charges.

The investigation was opened in the context of the "Express Wash" scandal, which shook the entire Brazilian political spectrum from 2014.

In 1989, the election at just 40 years of Fernando Collor de Mello, opposed in the second round to the current left-wing president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, had aroused immense hope. But Brazilians quickly became disillusioned: barely two years after coming to power, he resigned after seeing Congress open impeachment proceedings against him for passive corruption.

He still managed to return to politics in 2006, being elected senator for Alagoas, a poor northeastern state. He was elected until the end of last year. At the end of his second eight-year term in the upper house, Fernando Collor de Mello openly supported far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro.

With AFP

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