Brazil’s former president Michel Temer was arrested this morning in São Paulo as part of Operation Car Wash.
A Rio de Janeiro judge also issued an arrest warrant for a former Mines and Energy minister, Moreira Franco, and six more people.
::: "Whose interests does Temer’s arrest serve in this moment?" lawyer asks* :::
Michel Temer took office in 2016 after the ousting of president Dilma Rousseff. He is being investigated by the Car Wash task force for corruption, money laundering, and conspiracy, and for receiving bribes from companies in the port industry.
The investigations started when Temer was in office, after an order issued by the Supreme Court, but the Congress rejected the charges at the time.
But after Temer left office this year, he lost the special privileges he enjoyed as president and the Supreme Court submitted the four cases pending against him to a lower court. He has been charged in three of the cases.
Edited by: Luiz Felipe Albuquerque