The Brazilian Court has ratified the annulment of the sentences handed down against Lula – Telam

Former Brazilian President Luiz Incio Lula Da Silva was in a position to be a candidate in the 2022 elections, when the Supreme Federal Court (STF), the highest court in Brazil, ratified by majority on Thursday the cancellation of all the convictions and causes of Operation Lava Jato against him, a process that kept him in prison for 580 days.

By eight votes to three, the STF voted in favor of the ratification of the annulment of two convictions for corruption and two other open proceedings, considering that the former judge Srgio Moro, of the city of Curitiba, was incompetent by jurisdiction to deal with the questions of the former president.

The decision confirms what was determined on March 8 by Judge Edson Fachin, which led to a 2015 hbeas corpus against the jurisdiction of Moro, as he considers the crimes for which Lula was accused to have no connection with the deviations of corruption of Petrobras.

This vote forces the processes to be moved to São Paulo or Brasilia, but they give a hard defeat to Operation Lava Jato and Moro.

If the decision of March 23 was already historic for Lula because that day the STF recognized by three against two the “partiality” and the political persecution of Moro against him, the ratification of this Thursday is another key step because it leaves her at the gates of return to aspire to the Planalto Palace, a possibility with which the ex-unionist flirts but has not yet confirmed.

Chamber II of the Court, on March 9, declared Moro partial, but this situation can be reconsidered in plenary session next Thursday.

“The decision does not destroy Operation Lava Jato; it is something concrete with this case,” shouted Luis Fux, who voted against the cancellation, a vote expected because he has always been considered an ally of Moro and the Globo news channel, editorially. in favor of continuing the process.

Fux voted against the side of Marco Aurelio Mello, the dean, and Kassio Nunes Marques, the judge appointed by Bolsonaro.

Fachin, considered a lavajatista, quashed cases by jurisdiction in an attempt to save Moro from the crime of bias and the law.

Fachin, Carmen Lcia Antunes, Gilmar Mendes, Ricardo Lewandowksi, Alexandre de Moraes, Antonio Dias Toffoli, Luis Roberto Barroso and Rosa Weber voted in favor of the cancellation.

The annulment of the sentences clearly showed that the Curitiba jurisdiction of Operation Lava Jato in 2014 did not have the power to investigate Lula.

The former president spent a year and a half in prison for an eight-year prison sentence that in 2018 prevented him from participating in the elections for which he was a big favorite. and that the current president, Jair Bolsonaro, won.

This overturned conviction indicated that Lula had received an apartment in the city of Guaruj, São Paulo, as part of a bribe from the company OAS, an entrepreneur from Petrobras.

The second sentence of 15 years in prison linked Lula to reforms financed by the Odebrecht company in a house in Atibaia, inside São Paulo, frequented by the leader of the Workers’ Party (PT) and belonging to a trade unionist. friend.

Lula’s processes, unrelated to Petrobras, may prescribe or be the target of any accusation of administrative impropriety.

The decision was known when an investigation by DataPoder on the political portal Poder360 gave Lula a 12-point lead over Bolsonaro in a possible ballot, ahead of next year’s elections.

Since the March decisions, Lula has launched a media raid calling for vaccination against the coronavirus and in favor of quarantines, another point of confrontation with the model chosen by Bolsonaro to face the collapse of the hospital.

“What I’m looking for is a fair trial; they have always lied and at one point I thought I was going to have a fair trial,” Lula told Radio do Povo before the ruling.

The vote on March 23 and Thursday’s vote both represent milestones for the law and a political defeat for Operation Lava Jato and for Bolonarianism, which bet on the rejection of the corpus hbeas presented by Lula in 2018 and which comes from terminate.

Leaks made by a hacker showed the plot of Moro and the Lava Jato prosecutorial team led by Deltan Dallagnol, in which they launched actions of persecution against the PT leaders and Lula’s family, which they called the former president’s loss of a finger while he was a mechanical turner.

Moro later became Bolsonaro’s justice minister and before the election the president won, he leaked to the press an award-winning denunciation of former economy minister Antonio Palocci allegedly damaging the PT.

Moro resigned due to an argument in May last year and is now a partner at Alvarez & Marsal, a U.S. law firm handling the bankruptcy of Odebrecht, the pivotal company of Operation Lava Jato with 78 former leaders turned into award-winning whistleblowers. .

“STF confirms Lula’s rights! It’s historic. Late, but it happened! There is still a lot to put in place, but Moro’s incompetence was the fundamental step for this, the first demand of the defense “, he wrote in his account of the network Twitter the head of the PT, Glesi Hoffmann.

If Lula finally decides to be a candidate next year, chances are he will not only face Bolsonaro, but also compete with Moro himself.