Brazil Senate
© REUTERS/ Ueslei Marcelino
At least 60 percent of Brazilian senators have criminal charges against them, including of bribery and money laundering, a local television network reported, citing the Brazilian fact-checking website Lupa.

"The most frequently cited crime among sitting senators is money laundering and concealment of assets. The second most common crime is accepting bribes, with 25 Brazilian senators currently being investigated for such crimes," the report quoted by the TeleSUR broadcaster on Wednesday claimed.

Earlier on Thursday, Brazil's Senate, the upper house of the parliament, voted to temporarily suspend President Dilma Rousseff from office for 180 days while the process to impeach her begins.

The vote passed with a simple majority of 55 senators of the total 81 in favor of her suspension and 22 against.

Brazil's president has been facing a wave of public discontent for over a year amid the country's struggling economy and a major corruption scandal in the state-owned Petrobras petroleum company.