Brazil's icon Lula da Silva walked free from jail on Friday after a year and a half behind bars for corruption following a court ruling that could release thousands of convicts. The former president, wearing a black T-shirt and suit jacket, pumped his fist in the air as he exited the federal police headquarters in the southern city of Curitiba and was quickly mobbed by hundreds of supporters and journalists.
Thousands protested in Brazil on Sunday in support of Justice Minister Sergio Moro, who is battling claims he conspired with prosecutors on his anti-corruption drive to keep former leader Lula da Silva from another presidential run.
Brazilian Justice Minister Sergio Moro and federal prosecutors scrambled to respond on Monday to reports published by news website The Intercept based on what it said were leaked messages from a corruption probe.
A Brazilian court on Wednesday handed a near 13-year sentence to Lula da Silva, in a new corruption conviction for the former president already serving a lengthy jail term in a separate case.
Brazil's former president, Lula da Silva, says he was jailed to prevent him from winning the 2018 presidential election which saw far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro elected. In an exclusive interview with the BBC via letters from his cell, Lula said Judge Sergio Moro “did politics and not justice” when he sentenced him.
Brazilian far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro has convinced crusading anti-graft Judge Sergio Moro to become his justice minister, the two said on Thursday, delighting supporters and enraging critics “by hiring the jurist who jailed Bolsonaro's chief political rival”.
Brazil's president-elect Jair Bolsonaro says he wants the country's best-known anti-corruption judge to be justice minister or to serve on the Supreme Court. Sergio Moro has been the driving force behind an anti-corruption probe known as Operation Car Wash.
By Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (*) Curitiba.- Sixteen years ago, Brazil was in crisis; its future uncertain. Our dreams of developing into one of the world’s most prosperous and democratic countries seemed imperiled.
Ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil's polarizing election frontrunner and leftist icon, was negotiating his surrender after dramatically skipping a first deadline Friday to start his 12-year prison sentence for corruption.
Brazil's top court could rule as soon as this Wednesday whether former President Lula da Silva can stay out of prison while appealing a corruption conviction, a decision that could radically alter October's presidential election in Latin America's largest nation.