Brasília, 9/13/2005 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - During the press conference on Sunday during which he defended himself from charges of receiving bribes and kickbacks, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Serverino Cavalcanti (PP-PE), presented a copy of a document which has now become pivotal to the case. The document extends the concession contract of restaurateur, Sebastião Buani, to operate restaurants and snacks bars in the congressional office building. Buani says he had to pay off Cavalcanti in order to get the contract extension. Cavalcanti swears that he did not sign the document and that his signature on it is forged. On Sunday he presented a report by a handwriting expert corroborating what he said about the document.

However, since Sunday questions have been raised regarding the expertise and competence of Cavalcanti's handwriting expert. So, yesterday the third secretary of the Chamber of Deputies, Eduardo Gomes (PSDB-TO), sent a request to the head of the Chamber's magistratical office (corregedor da Casa), Ciro Nogueira (PP-PE), for a new examination of the document by the country's most renowned handwriting experts at the University of Campinas (Unicamp).

Translator: Allen Bennett