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Brazil graft probe judge buried after being killed in plane crash

By Brad Brooks SAO PAULO (Reuters) - A Brazilian Supreme Court justice who had overseen the investigation of politicians linked to the nation's largest graft scheme was buried on Saturday, two days after he died in a plane crash. Justice Teori Zavascki was killed when the small aircraft he was in crashed 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 buried in Porto Alegre Saturday evening. Investigators are working to determine what caused the crash of the Hawker Beechcraft C90GT twin-prop plane. It plunged into a bay, just three kilometres (two miles) short of a landing strip in the tourist town of Paraty in Rio de Janeiro state. Four others on board, including the pilot, also died. The Brazilian Air Force, which is conducting the investigation, has only confirmed it recovered the cockpit voice recorder. Federal police and prosecutors are conducting separate investigations to reassure a suspicious public that no foul play was involved. Zavascki was close to making public what is expected to be explosive plea bargain testimony from 77 executives of the Odebrecht [ODBES.UL] construction conglomerate. The release of that testimony, and the entire investigation, will now be delayed, as the Supreme Court determines which justice will take over the case. Investigators have said Odebrecht was the company that gained the most from a vast graft scheme involving billions in bribes to win contracts with state-run oil firm Petrobras and other government-controlled companies. Testimony from Odebrecht executives is expected to implicate upward of 200 politicians and powerful figures from the business community, greatly expanding an already massive probe and possibly also implicating the sitting president, Michel Temer, who has denied any wrongdoing. Temer, who attended the funeral, said before the burial that he would not nominate a justice to replace Zavascki until the top court has decided which of the sitting judges would take over handling the graft probe. That move helps avoid any accusations that Temer was meddling in a case that has already ensnared some of his ministers and members of his party. Zavascki, 68, was travelling in an aircraft belonging to a friend, Alberto Filgueiras, 69, a boutique hotelier, who also died in the crash. Maira Panas, a 23-year-old personal massage therapist for Filgueiras, and her mother, Maria Panas, 55, were also aboard, along with the pilot, Osmar Rodrigues, 56. (Reporting by Brad Brooks; Editing by Andrew Bolton and Leslie Adler)