"I will come to the podium every day to defend myself."

247 - Senator Demóstenes Torres (no party affiliation-GO) promised, this Monday 2, to defend himself daily in the Senate plenary until next Wednesday, when he will have only 20 minutes to defend himself against the process that could revoke his mandate. "I will come until next Wednesday, every day, to defend myself," he warned. "I do this because next Wednesday (11) I will have 20 minutes plus 10 (minutes). very little time for (someone) to explain themselves," he added.

"For four months I have been living through an ordeal without darkness," complained the senator, who again defended himself against accusations of maintaining ties with the illegal gambling operator Carlinhos Cachoeira, imprisoned since February 29th. "I was a friend of Carlinhos Cachoeira, but I never had any legal or illegal business dealings with him," he said, complaining about the way the press has been handling the case. "When the issues are exhausted, they reheat everything. No citizen deserves such punishment," he complained. "In the legal sphere, I haven't even been accused, but in the court of headlines I've already been denounced, judged, and condemned," he added.

Demosthenes reiterated that he has no partnership "nor anything to do" with the crimes investigated by the Vegas and Monte Carlo Operations of the Federal Police. "That's what the police officers and public prosecutors who worked on the case concluded," he said, adding that he did not put his mandate at Cachoeira's service. "My conscience is clear, it remains clean. In the media, an incredible repertoire of insults is being directed against me. The campaign is record-breaking in its size and incalculable in its volume," he said. "It's difficult to measure and impossible to describe the pain these attacks cause me. The tactic of my detractors is to implode the edifice of integrity built over the years," he lamented.

Tweet count

The senator, who left the DEM party after the allegations surfaced, even counted the messages against him on Twitter to prove the defamation campaign he claims to have been the target of. "There was a period of 50 tweets per second insulting me," he said. "Thus, leak by leak, grain by grain, the story of an honorable life was ground down," he added. "I hit rock bottom, but, thank God, I got up. I won the greatest of wars, the one fought in my own subconscious. I reaffirm my innocence to everyone," he defended himself. 

At the end of his speech, the senator apologized to each of the 44 parliamentarians who interrupted his speech in which he said he had no business relationship with Cachoeira, only a family one. "It is with an open heart that I return here asking for forgiveness for the mistakes I made," said Demóstenes, before naming the parliamentarians. "I ask forgiveness for any embarrassment I may have caused," he added. 

Demosthenes' defense was made in front of only four colleagues: Ana Amélia (PP-RS), Pedro Taques (PDT-MT), Aníbal Diniz (PT-AC), and Rodrigo Rollemberg (PSB-DF). "I'm not going to provide an audience to listen to lies. To err once is human. To err twice is foolish," explained Alvaro Dias (PSDB-PR), who left the plenary before the speech.