The nation’s prosecutors have faced mounting demands to clarify evidence supporting the Pires’s corruption charge, spearheaded by a nine-page open letter from Xanana Gusmao to Pires on 25 January, and supported Wednesday by Lúcia Lobato, the former Minister for Justice.

Confronted twice by journalists seeking response to the accusations, Jose Ximenes said he had “no comment,” adding soon after that he physically could not speak because he “had a fever and could not hear anything.”

The brush-off was followed by Ximenes delivering a speech at the conference outlining need to combat corruption.

Later Adérito Pinto, the Commissioner of Anti-Corruption Commission (CAC), the body called on to lead the accountability investigation, said CAC “could not intervene” in what he considered a political matter.

 Executive Director of the Justice System Monitoring Program (JSMP), Luis de Oliveira Sampaio indicated that Gusmao’s letter, distributed to Timor-Leste’s media outlets for print on 30 January, could threaten the nation’s judicial independence. He said the court system should be left to do its work without public interference from people he said had power to manipulate.

Pires has denied any legal wrongdoing in a corruption and abuse of power scandal that has left her living in exile in Portugal, refusing to return to Timor-Leste to confront charges that date back to 2008 when she was Finance Minister under Gusmao’s first-term government.

Pires is accused of awarding her husband Warren Macleod’s Melbourne-based business Mac’s Metalcraft the $2.04 million contract to supply beds to Guido Valadares National Hospital in Dili.

On 20 December Pires was sentenced to seven-years in prison for her act.