SAO PAULO, April 6, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Since entering prison a year ago,
Brazil’s former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been spending his
days working out in his cell and fighting to prove his innocence.
The 73-year-old leftist icon, who has been sentenced to 25 years behind
bars in two separate corruption cases, remains determined to challenge the
“injustices” he has suffered, said Gleisi Hoffmann, head of the Workers Party
that Lula founded.
“From the political point of view… he remains strong,” Hoffmann said as
Lula prepares to mark one year in jail in the southern city of Curitiba on
Sunday.
Lula has denied all the charges against him, claiming they were
politically motivated with the aim of preventing him competing in elections
last year that were won by Brazil’s new far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.
During his election campaign, Bolsonaro said he hoped Lula would “rot in
prison.”
Lula has been allowed to leave jail twice in the past 12 months — once
for the funeral of his seven-year-old grandson, whose death Hoffmann said had
left the former president “shattered, very sad.”
The other time was to give evidence in court.
Lula, who served two terms as head of state between 2003 and 2010, also
spends time reading and writing letters that his party publishes, and
watching his beloved Corinthians football team from Sao Paulo on television.
But the news brought to him by his lawyers on their daily visits could not
be worse. Everything they have tried so far to free the popular leftist
leader has failed.
– Dwindling options –
On Thursday, Lula suffered another setback when the Supreme Court
indefinitely delayed debate on whether a prisoner convicted of a non-violent
crime should be released before the end of their appeals process, which could
have potentially freed him.
Lula is running out of options.
He is awaiting the outcome of a second appeal to review his first
conviction on bribery and money laundering charges, which put him jail in the
first place for just over 12 years.
But Silvana Batini, a prosecutor and law professor at the Getulio Vargas
Foundation, said his chances of success were slim.
“The rates of alteration and reviews of convictions are low, statistically
speaking,” said Batini.
But she added: “Obviously, the question of Lula is exceptional.”
Lula is also appealing the second sentence of almost 13 years handed down
in February for accepting renovation work by two construction companies on a
farmhouse in exchange for ensuring they won contracts with the state-run oil
company Petrobras.
Bolsonaro’s victory in October’s elections ended decades of center-left
rule in Brazil and delivered a major blow to Lula’s chances of freedom.
Soon after winning, Bolsonaro named Sergio Moro, the anticorruption judge
who handed Lula his first conviction, as justice minister.
Representatives of the Workers Party are expected to join dozens of Lula
fans on Sunday who have maintained a vigil at the prison gates since the
politician was jailed.
They hope to breathe new life into the flagging “free Lula” campaign.