Former Brazilian nuclear chief charged with corruption

Brasília

A key figure in Brazil's atomic energy program, Othon Luiz Pinheiro da Silva, was formally charged Thursday with taking $1.22 million in bribes as part of a corruption scheme. 

Judge Sergio Moro, leading Brazil's huge anti-corruption drive, said he had accepted the case against the former admiral.

 Pinheiro da Silva is alleged to have taken the bribes while head of Eletronuclear, a subsidiary of the state electricity company Eletrobras, in return for help in embezzling from the construction of the Angra3 power plant, about 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Rio de Janeiro.

 The alleged scheme mirrors the vast bribery and embezzlement plot at Petrobras, Brazil's state oil company that prosecutors have been picking apart over the last year and a half.

 Participants in the Eletronuclear scheme allegedly paid bribes on at least two dozen occasions between 2007 and 2012 to receive inflated contracts.

 Pinheiro da Silva, who was already jailed on preliminary charges, is one of the original masterminds of Brazil's once secretive nuclear program, begun under the two-decade-long military dictatorship ending in 1985. Another 14 people, including his daughter Ana da Silva Toniolo, were also charged.

 Prosecutors estimate that $2.1 billion in bribes were paid as part of the Petrobras scheme. Some of the country's top executives, as well as a growing list of political figures, are among the dozens already charged in the growing scandal.