Overview

• Rubens Oliveira Costa testified to the CPMI on Monday, denied being a business partner of Antônio Carlos Camilo Antunes and said he only worked as a salaried administrative and financial manager.
• He attended under an STF habeas corpus that allowed him to remain silent, declined to pledge to tell the truth and stayed quiet or claimed not to recall answers, leading the chair to suspend the session twice.
• Commission president Carlos Viana rejected Costa’s request to be treated as an investigated party and kept him as a witness, while warning that false testimony could prompt immediate arrest.
• Viana confirmed the commission plans to hear Antunes on Thursday, 25 September, after talks with his defense, following an earlier no-show under a separate habeas corpus that made his appearance optional.
• Antunes remains in preventive detention with his bank and tax records under secrecy break approved by the CPMI, and the Federal Police identify him as the facilitator of a nationwide scheme of unauthorized INSS deductions in which Costa is cited as an intermediary.