Marcos Chagas and Ana Paula Marra
Reporters - Agência Brasil

Brasília - President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva cannot be held in any way responsible for the vote-buying scheme investigated by the Joint Parliamentary Investigatory Commission (CPMI) on the Post Office, declares the final report submitted by deputy Osmar Serraglio (PMDB-PR).

As he had already been telling the press he would, Serraglio, who was assigned the task of preparing the document for the CPMI, considered the president in his report. In a chapter entitled "What President Lula Knew," Serraglio refers to sections of testimony in which witnesses, such as former federal deputy, Roberto Jefferson (PTB-RJ), allude to the president's possible awarness of "the envolvement of members of the legislature in illegalities that were committed."

Serraglio emphasizes that nothing revealed by the investigations shows any evidence that the president was guilty of any act of omission.

"There is no objective responsibility here on the part of the Commander in Chief of the nation, merely because he sits at the apex of the Executive Power, which would imply holding him responsible whether he had knowledge or not... Nothing suggests that he was guilty of any omission," the rapporteur states.

Translation: David Silberstein