Above Photo: Reuters/ Pilar Olivares
Reuters reports that Brazil’s Supreme Court on Tuesday delayed until August its decision on an appeal by imprisoned former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who argued he should be freed because leaked private messages showed that the judge who convicted him was not impartial.
Five judges on the 11-member court heard the appeal. After rejecting in a 3-to-2 vote a proposal by one justice that Lula be freed until they have more time to evaluate the appeal, the justices decided to delay a decision until August, after a judicial recess.KZ
“Lula is a political prisoner, he has to be released and his trial has to be annulled,” says the manifesto, published in the French newspaper Le Monde.
The signatories consider that the recent revelations of the digital media The Intercept on Operation Lava Jato “tore down the masks” and confirmed that the judge who convicted Lula in the first instance, Sérgio Moro, not only was not impartial but led the accusation in the whole process.The manifesto emphasizes that Moro guided the work of the Prosecutor’s Office and had to “resign” to condemn Lula for “indeterminate events”, given the lack of evidence that directly implicated him in corruption cases.
“In doing so, he turned Lula into a political prisoner in what should be considered, before these new revelations, as a political conspiracy,” say the signatories, who stress that the strategy went well because it ended up leading to the election of Jair Bolsonaro as President.
The jurists emphasize that once Lula was removed from the electoral race, the right-wing leader won the elections without problems, and that he “immediately” rewarded Moro by naming him Minister of Justice.
The manifesto is published just a day before the Federal Supreme Court deliberates on an appeal by the former president’s defense to obtain his freedom based on the supposed partiality of Judge Moro.The lawyers of the leader of the Workers’ Party (PT) filed this appeal to annul the conviction when Moro signed for the Bolsonaro government, but in recent days they reinforced the request with the information revealed by The Intercept.
The Supreme Court has on the agenda of June 25 the analysis of the case of Lula, but according to the local press it is very likely that the judges will postpone the decision to the second half of the year.