(9 Mar 2021) A justice from Brazil’s top court on Monday annulled all sentences against former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, which for now restores his political rights and would potentially allow him to run again for the presidency next year.
The decision also laid bare the country’s political divisions, with leftists celebrating their 75-year-old leader’s return to the political arena as conservatives said the rulings were tantamount to impunity.
Others saw the ruling as an attempt to preserve a vast but embattled corruption investigation that has led to numerous convictions of powerful businessmen and politicians but that has been accused of impropriety.
The decision by Justice Luiz Edson Fachin drew no conclusions about the mammoth “Car Wash” investigation centred on state-run giant Petrobras, from which the da Silva probes emerged.
It said, instead, that the federal court in the southern city of Curitiba, which sentenced da Silva twice for corruption and money laundering, didn’t have jurisdiction to put the leftist leader on trial.
Fachin said the cases would be sent to the federal court of Brazil’s Federal District, where they can begin anew.
Da Silva’s lawyers issued a statement welcoming the decision, saying it was aligned "with everything we have said for more than five years in these suits”.
But Brazilian media reported that the country's attorney general, an ally of conservative President Jair Bolsonaro, was preparing to appeal the decision.
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