Joint Parliamentary Inquiry Commission meeting to hear Costa's testimony may be closed.

Agency Board - The chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Inquiry Commission (CPMI) on Petrobras, Senator Vital do Rêgo (PMDB-PB), does not rule out the possibility of the meeting to hear former state-owned company director Paulo Roberto Costa being closed to the public and the press. The intention is to prevent the executive from remaining silent, since he has the constitutional right to remain silent so as not to produce evidence against himself. The testimony is scheduled for 14:30 pm this Wednesday.

"The session will begin openly and, during its course, may turn into a closed session at the request of parliamentarians and with the agreement of the witness," the president explained in an interview with TV Senado.

According to Vital do Rêgo, Paulo Roberto's possible silence is a defense strategy and must be respected. "He has a constitutional guarantee against self-incrimination. We will urge him to provide the same cooperation to the CPI that he is providing to the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Federal Police," he stated.

The rapporteur of the Joint Parliamentary Inquiry Commission (CPMI), Deputy Marco Maia (PT-RS), admitted that parliamentarians may suggest a closed session in an attempt to get Paulo Roberto Costa to speak. "The intention is to hold an open session. Now, this [closed meeting] can be requested by the witness himself, and depending on the information about how the process is working in the courts, we can choose to have his testimony taken in secret."

Rules

Despite the possibility of the testimony being taken in a closed meeting, a special security arrangement is being put in place at the Senate to hear the former director. Plenary Room 2 of the Nilo Coelho wing in the Senate, reserved for the meeting, can only accommodate 60 people.

Those who are not present will be able to follow the hearing on screens installed in three other rooms. One of them (room 6) will be exclusively for journalists and the other two (rooms 3 and 7) for the general public.

Access to the Nilo Coelho wing will be controlled by the Senate Police and will be restricted to staff, senators, representatives, and accredited press. Each parliamentarian will be allowed one parliamentary advisor.

Senate CPI

This will be Paulo Roberto Costa's second testimony before Congress. In June, before his plea bargain, he appeared before the Senate's CPI (Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry) and denied involvement in the embezzlement of money from Petrobras. He claimed he was being treated unfairly, accused the press of "publishing unfounded data," and said he didn't know Alberto Youssef was a money launderer.

In his testimony to the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI), Paulo Roberto Costa also admitted that, although he had not formalized a contract, he provided consulting services to the money launderer and received a car worth R$ 250 as payment, plus R$ 50 for the bulletproofing.

The day after testifying before the senators, the former director of Petrobras was arrested again, after the Public Prosecutor's Office discovered that he held US$ 23 million in accounts abroad.

Plea bargain

Costa remains imprisoned in Paraná and has made a plea bargain agreement in which he allegedly named authorities who were involved in the embezzlement of funds from Petrobras, according to a report in Veja magazine last week.

On Monday, Judge Sérgio Moro of the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba authorized Paulo Roberto to leave prison to testify before Congress. He will not be handcuffed and may have legal counsel present during his testimony.