Lula's new conviction for corruption

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, imprisoned for corruption, was sentenced to 12 years and 11 months imprisonment in connection with another corruption and money laundering case. money, as part of the investigation Lava Jato.

Lula (2003-2010) has already been convicted since last year for another corruption case, after the court declared that he had received an apartment on a beach in San Pablo in exchange for bribes. of wine.

In this new case, Lula was found guilty of being favored by OAS and Odebrecht companies with work done on a rural property that he frequented, located near the municipality of Atibaia, in the state of San Pablo.

Judge Gabriela Hart, who replaced Sérgio Moro, also sentenced the businessmen Marcelo Odebrecht (five years and four months) and Emílio Odebrecht (three years and three months), as well as Leo Pinheiro, former president of the # 39; OEA (one year and seven months). .

The owner of the country house, Fernando Bittar, the head of the works, José Carlos Bumlai, and four other people were also penalized, the newspaper reported. Folha de São Paulo.

The decision can be appealed.

The payment of works on the property by Odebrecht was revealed in January 2016 by the Brazilian media.

Bittar, an old friend of Lula's family, temporarily handed over the property to the former president in 2010 so that he could enjoy it with his family.

However, according to the law, although he is not the owner of the country house, Lula illegally benefited from the reforms undertaken in the same direction by companies favored by his government with contracts with the state oil company Petrobras .

"It is a fact that the family of the former president was a frequent visitor to the property, and that he used it as if it was an accident." gift, "Hart writes in the decision.

For prosecutors, Lula "ran a criminal ploy" and "knowingly and willfully" hid the origin of the money used for the extension work of the property.

According to a police report, the expenses amounted to R $ 1.26 million (about $ 340,000).

Lula has been imprisoned since last April in Curitiba after being found guilty of receiving a reformed apartment in Guarujá that was reformed by the OAS.

The exmandatario of the left-wing workers' party (PT) appeals this condemnation in the third instance.

In July 2017, Moro, who withdrew from the case and then resigned from his position as Minister of Justice in President Jair Bolsonaro's cabinet, sentenced Lula to nine years and six months in prison .

But the sentence was raised to 12 years and a month by a court of appeal.

This conviction prevented 73-year-old Lula from standing in the elections that Bolsonaro won last year and for which he had the highest intention of voting at the polls.

The Brazilian president refuses to have committed a crime and claims that his sentence is part of a political persecution orchestrated by Moro and the government of former president Michel Temer, so as not to win the elections.

The judge who sentenced Gabriela Hart