Porto Alegre, 3/2/2004 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - Yesterday the former director of the Rio Grande do Sul state-run lottery (Lotergs), José Vicente Brizola, testified that he was pressured to make financial contributions to PT election campaigns. Prosecutors say they will check on everything Brizola said and interrogate everyone he mentioned.

The prosecutors will also be cross-checking what Brizola said with their ongoing investigation of bingos and money laundering operations in the state. According to one prosecutor, it has always been known that people who run numbers games were involved in election campaigns, but the relationship has never been so clearly established as in the Brizola testimony. (AB)