SAO PAULO: The funeral was being held on Saturday of a Brazilian Supreme Court justice who died in a plane crash after overseeing the investigation of politicians linked to the nation’s largest graft scheme. Justice Teori Zavascki was killed when the small aircraft he was in came down in heavy rain on Thursday. Mourners said farewell to the judge at a federal courthouse in southern Brazil where he worked for many years. He was to be buried on Saturday evening. Investigators worked to quickly determine what caused the crash of the Hawker Beechcraft C90GT twin-prop plane. It plunged into a bay, just three kilometres short of a landing strip in the colonial tourist town of Paraty in Rio de Janeiro state.
Four others on board, including the pilot, also died. The Brazilian Air Force, which oversees crash investigations, has not released details other than to confirm it recovered the cockpit voice recorder on Friday. Federal police and prosecutors are conducting separate investigations to try to reassure a suspicious public, and members of their own ranks, that no foul play was involved in the deaths. The justice was close to making public what is expected to be explosive plea bargain testimony from 77 executives of the Odebrecht construction conglomerate. — Reuters
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
