Following the substantive process followed by the six involved in the Odebrecht case, which was withdrawn until Monday, two key witnesses from the Public Ministry testified yesterday, with which they are trying to prove that the company paid a bribe of 92 million USD to be favored with state works.
However, in the first collegiate court of the national district, one of the witnesses Marcelo Hofke, who held the position of manager of the Brazilian company in the country, stated that he did not know that bribes had been paid.
He acknowledged that they had hired a sales representative in the country, who exercised his representation through their companies, citing defendant Ángel Rondón.
To the question of one of Rondón’s lawyers, if in the interrogation carried out since then the general prosecutor of the Republic, Jean Alain Rodríguez and the chief (Pepca) in 2017, he declared that there were bribes in the country, he answered no.
He stated in the court headed by Gissel Pérez Méndez, made up of Tania Yunet and Gisell Naranjo, that payments had been made to Odechecht’s sales representative in the country (Rondón) for services provided since 2001.
For his part, witness Rodrigo Maluf Cardoso, during interrogations, admitted that the company Aragon Business Consulting, represented by the defendant in the trial Conrado Pittaluga Arzeno, did not receive any payment from the construction company, contrary to what was claimed in the accusation.
He acknowledged that Odebrecht’s payments were received by another company outside Pittaluga called Aragon Finance Corp., registered in Panama.