Brazil judge gives order that could free Lula from prison

A Brazilian supreme court judge on Wednesday issued an order
that could see former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva soon
released from prison, where he is serving a 12-year term for
graft.

Justice Marco Aurelio Mello ruled that all prisoners in Lula’s
situation — those whose convictions have been confirmed by a second
court — should be freed while final appeals were under way if their
lawyers request it.

The decision was unexpected and sent a jolt through Brazil’s
political and legal circles just ahead of far-right president-elect
Jair Bolsonaro’s inauguration on January 1.

Up to now, the country’s courts had rejected multiple efforts by
Lula’s lawyers to win the ex-leader’s release. The full supreme
court had said it was to convene on April 10, 2019 to consider the
matter abruptly decided by Mello.

Lula’s imprisonment prevented him from contesting October
elections that were won by Bolsonaro, who lambasted the former
far-left leader and repeatedly tied Lula’s Workers Party to
corruption.

Lula has said from his cell that he would have easily triumphed
in that election — something borne out by voter surveys that showed
the ex-president remained broadly popular with Brazilians despite
his conviction.

– Claims innocence –
The head of the Workers Party, Gleisi Hoffman, tweeted immediately
after publication of the judge’s order that lawyers have already
put in a request for Lula’s release.

Lula, 73, was incarcerated in April this year after being found
guilty of accepting a seaside apartment as a bribe from a Brazilian
construction company, BTP, in return for public works contracts
during his 2003-2010 time in office.

He is the subject of five other corruption and money laundering
investigations but insists he is innocent of all charges.

In November, he and his successor — fellow Workers Party member
Dilma Rousseff — were accused of receiving bribes with money
diverted from state-owned oil giant Petrobras, which sits at the
center of a vast corruption probe in Brazil known as Car Wash.

He has also been accused of money laundering in his dealings
with Equatorial Guinea after he left the presidency.

The 11 justices sitting on the supreme court had ruled in 2016
that a sentence had to be carried out if an initial appeal failed.
That was upheld to put Lula behind bars.

– Popular leader –
Lula, who has been held in a prison in the southern city of
Curitiba, has said the charges against him and his incarceration
were meant to keep him out of this year’s election.

During his two terms at the helm of Latin America’s biggest
economy, Lula rode high on Brazil’s good fortune being a major
commodity exporter as China’s appetite for its resources expanded.
The country also discovered massive off-shore deepwater oil fields,
adding to its national wealth.

He earned the gratitude of millions of Brazilians for
redistributing wealth to haul them out of poverty, and oversaw
Brazil’s successful bids to host the World Cup soccer tournament in
2014 and the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

But under Rousseff, Brazil’s prosperity got wiped out in the
worst recession on record. She ended up being impeached and booted
from the presidency for cooking the government’s books.

(AFP)

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