Court Unanimously Denies Habeas Corpus to Ex-President Lula

03/07/2018 - 13h28

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REYNALDO TUROLLO JR.

LETÍCIA CASADO

FROM BRASÍLIA

Five ministers of the Fifth Panel of the Brazilian Superior Court of Justice (STJ) unanimously denied, on Tuesday (6), a preventive habeas corpus request filed by the defense of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to prevent his arrest before exhausting all the appeals in the case of the triplex apartment in Guarujá (SP).

In January, Lula's conviction for money laundering and passive corruption was upheld by the appeals court TRF-4 (Federal Regional Court of the 4th Region), a court which increased his sentence to 12 years and one month in prison without parole.

Lula's defense still has an appeal in progress with the TRF-4 – it filed a motion for clarification of the ruling, – but, at the same time, it also filed a habeas corpus request to prevent temporary execution of Lula's prison sentence.

Justice Felix Fischer, rapporteur of the Car Wash investigation, was the first to vote against Lula's request.

He mentioned extensive precedents of the STJ and the STF (Brazilian Supreme Federal Court) and underscored in his vote that the analysis of facts and evidence is supposed to end at the second degree of jurisdiction - in Lula's case, the TRF-4.

Attorney Sepúlveda Pertence, who has already presided the STF, defended Lula and said there is a "fallacious pressure from important agencies to force his conviction."

Translated by ANA BEATRIZ DEMARIA

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