Publicist Joao Santana, who headed the publicity campaign for Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during his 2006 re-election run, is being investigated for alleged irregularities in business contracts with political parties, O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper reported Sunday.
Santana is the target for a stealthy investigation being carried out since 2006 by the Public Ministry and the Federal Police, according to government officials consulted by the daily.
The investigation, the paper added, concerns contracts that Santana's firm signed with the governing Workers Party, or PT, in 2004 to undertake the ad campaigns of three mayoral candidates being backed by the party.
According to the paper's version, prosecutors suspect that part of the income Santana received from the PT in 2004 was not reported to the authorities by the party, which would be a sign of money laundering and tax evasion.
The PT was founded by Lula in 1980 and came to power for the first time in 2003 when he won the presidency after several tries.
Santana took over Lula's publicity campaign during his re-election bid after the 2005 eruption of the corruption scandal within the PT wound up tainting publicist Duda Mendonca, who up to then had been in charge of crafting the president's image.
The corruption scandal, the worst faced by Lula so far and which politically wiped out the entire PT leadership, forced the party to admit that it illegally used certain resources to finance its various election campaigns.
Santana's defense attorney, Dora Cavalcanti Cordani, admitted to O Estado de Sao Paulo that her client is the target of an investigation, but she added that he is not suspected of money laundering or alleged tax evasion.
She said that the accusations are unfounded and that all the money Santana received from the PT in 2004 was legally declared.
Source: Herald Tribune
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