BRASÍLIA: Angry quarrels erupted at suspended Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff's impeachment trial Friday, while her key ally, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, faced corruption charges on a day of turmoil for Latin America's largest country.
Day two of Rousseff's Senate trial in the capital Brasilia began with shouting matches that forced Supreme Court Chief Justice Ricardo Lewandowski to put the session temporarily on hold until tempers calmed.
Senate President Renan Calheiros called the row, prompted by a Rousseff loyalist's questioning of the notoriously corrupt Senate's moral authority, "a demonstration of infinite stupidity."
This senate "is a madhouse!" Calheiros said.
About two-thirds of the senators have current or past brushes with the law, according to corruption watchdog Transparencia Brasil.
Rousseff, 68, is accused of breaking the law by taking unauthorized state bank loans to cover up budgetary shortfalls during her 2014 re-election.
She says the budgetary maneuvers were legal, describing herself as victim of a right-wing power grab after 13 years' rule by her leftist Workers' Party.
Witnesses for the defense were called Friday following the trial's opening day Thursday, when the case against Rousseff was presented.
One witness, economist Luiz Gonzaga Belluzo, insisted that Rousseff did not violate the law, and that ousting her would be "an attack on democracy."
The session ended at 0200 GMT Saturday, and is set to resume at 1300 GMT.
Rousseff herself is planning to testify Monday in a dramatic last-ditch attempt to save herself before senators vote -- with analysts widely predicting her defeat.
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