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The president of a Brazilian court of appeal ruled on Sunday that former president Lula, convicted of corruption, was to remain in prison, putting an end to a brief imbroglio within the same court.
Judge Rogerio Favreto, who was this week-end judge TRF4, the Court of Appeal of Porto Alegre, in southern Brazil, caused a sensation by ordering Sunday release of Lula.
The TRF4 of Porto Alegre is the court that had ratified last January the conviction of first instance of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Judge Favreto had decided Sunday to the general surprise to accept an application for habeas corpus presented Friday by several Workers' Party (PT) deputies, founded by Lula in 1980. He had even demanded that this release take place as early as Sunday, "according to the emergency regime."
Lula's supporters immediately began to celebrate his release immi three months after incarceration. More than a thousand people gathered in front of the federal police building in Curitiba, in southern Brazil, where Lula is being held, demanding his release.
But soon after, another TRF4 judge, Joao Pedro Gebran Neto decided to keep the former president in prison and set aside his colleague's decision.
In a new twist, Judge Favreto stated that he was upholding his decision. "I reaffirm the content of the decisions taken previously, by decreeing the immediate implementation of the measure of liberation within a maximum delay of one hour," he wrote.
A few hours later, the president of the TRF4, Carlos Eduardo Thomson Flores, has decided. In a statement, he said he upheld Judge Gebran Neto's ruling that the former president was to remain in prison, where he was serving a 12-year sentence and one month's imprisonment for corruption.
TRF4 declares in this communique that it orders "the execution of the decision pronounced by (the Judge Gebran Neto)" on the maintenance of Lula in detention.
In a few hours, this judicial imbroglio created the confusion in Brazil, to three months of a presidential election among the most uncertain in the history of the country and which Lula wants to introduce.
Even if he had been released, the former president (2003-2010), in head of the voting intentions for the October poll, would probably have seen his candidacy invalidated by the electoral court, under a law that prohibits any candidate already convicted on appeal from standing.
– Arms –
The liberation order of di had been like a bomb in Brazil. The anti-corruption judge Sergio Moro, who sentenced Lula at first instance in July 2017, had stated in an official document in the wake that Judge Favreto did not have the jurisdiction to make this decision.
Judicial standoff is pursued with an official request from the Federal Prosecution to backtrack, repeating Sergio Moro's argument by stating that the duty judge does not have the jurisdiction to consider an application for habeas corpus.
On Sunday, Brazilian judges recalled that Justice Favreto, a former lawyer, had been a member of the PT from 1991 to 2010, when he joined the judiciary.
The PT appealed to the mobilization in a statement aimed at title "The freedom of Lula is the freedom of Brazil."
The PT insurgent against the cancellation of the liberation order in this release, saying it is "inconvevable" that the decision of a TRF4 judge is not
"Constitutional guarantees and the rule of law have been broken! All in Curitiba, all in the street, "Gleisi Hoffmann, PT President,
– Recourse in Series –
Accused of receiving a beachfront apartment to promote a building company Obtaining public contracts, Lula fiercely denies and is the victim of a conspiracy to prevent him from running for a third term.
Leading figure in the fight against corruption in Brazil, Sergio Moro has experienced several setbacks in recent weeks , with the release on June 26 of Jose Dirceu, ex-strongman of the Lula government, and the recent acquittal of Gleisi Hoffmann, also accused of corruption.
Lula's defense had increased recourse to the Supreme Court for claiming his release, without success.
His lawyers believe that the icon of the left must remain free until all appeals are exhausted, but the Supreme Court decided in April to apply a case law according to which any person sentenced in the second instance had to be imprisoned.
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