Luciana Vasconcelos
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Brasília - Members of the Joint Parliamentary Investigatory Commission (CPMI) on the Post Office will travel to the United States sometime before the end of January to try to obtain confidential documents on advertising executive Duda Mendonça"s Dusseldorf account and the accounts that provided it with funds.

This information was furnished by the president of the CPMI, senator Delcídio Amaral (PT-MS). The intention is to approach the Justice Department, in Washingon, and the New York district attorney's office, as well as alternative agencies. "We will obtain at least what we need to cross-check information," Amaral believes.

Last year the Ministry of Justice's Department of Asset Recovery and International Judicial Cooperation (DRCI) received information about financial activity in the Dusseldorf account. The Brazilian government requested permission from the US Justice Department to break the confidentiality of the Dusseldorf account and 17 other accounts that provided it with funds. The documents were turned over to the Federal Police and the Federal Public Defense Ministry.

The national secretary of Justice, Cláudia Chagas, informed that the documents are confidential and that the US government recommended that the information contained in them not be leaked, since this could hamper the ongoing investigations. In testimony before the CPMI on the Post Office, Duda Mendonça said that his Dusseldorf company's Bahamas account received "unreported" payments from the Workers' Party (PT) 2002 presidential campaign fund.

Translation: David Silberstein