José Janene

José Mohamed Janene (Santo Inácio, September 12, 1955 - São Paulo, September 14, 2010) was a Brazilian businessman, cowman and politician. He had many farms and ran many companies, mostly in Londrina, where he lived. Nevertheless, Janene became notable in the politics where he gained notability for being involved in the Mensalão scandal.^[1]

By the occasion of Mensalão scandal, Janene was the Progressive Party leader in the Chamber of Deputies and was accused of having received R$ 4.1 millions from the scheme operated by the advertiser Marcos Valério. Among the 19 congressmen involved in the scheme named "valerioduto", Janene was the last one to be trialled by the Chamber. Despite the lawsuit having been initiated on October 17, 2005, the Ethics committee of the Chamber delayed for over 13 months the voting of the report that recommended the revocation of Janene's mandate. Since September 2005, when he left the Chamber in a sick leave, Janene succeeded in postponing the lawsuit many times by claiming to suffer with health issues. He even asked for retirement before the voting of the revocation of his mandate but the request was rejected by the Chamber's direction board.

On December 6, 2006, the licensed congressman was declared innocent in a Chamber session with very few voters. In a secret voting, 210 congressmen voted in favor of the revocation of his mandate, 128 voted against the revocation, 5 voted blank and 23 refused to vote. The minimum of 257 votes in favor of revocation were necessary to revoke Janene's mandate but the low quantity of congressmen was helpful to release Janene from condemnation. On December 31, 2006, the Brazilian newspaper of record published the Chamber's decision of conceding Janene a 12.8 thousand real retirement for health problems motivation.^[2][3][4][5]

On September 15, 2006, one of his farms, known as "3 Jota", located in Guaravera district, Londrina, was invaded by members of Landless Workers' Movement. The invasors claimed that the property had been bought with money of corruption and should be included in agrarian reform.^[6]

In 2009, new accusations of money laundering thrilled José Janene even more, worsening his cardiopathy.^[7] Since then, investigations about Janene were resumed. Because of the worsening of his health condition, due to a stroke,^[8] besides the promulgation of "Ficha Limpa Law",^[9] Janene was forced to quit his political career and started to act behind the scenes. He was planning to return to politics when suffered a second stroke in February 2010. Janene kept waiting during three months for a heart transplantation but it never happened. He died on September 14, 2010, in INCOR Hospital, in São Paulo, due to a septic shock.^[10][11] His body was buried in the Muslim cemetery, in Londrina.

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