Brazil's top court annuls all sentences against Lula

By Gabriel Toueg

SAO PAULO (AA) - Justice Edson Fachin of the Brazilian Supreme Court (STF) annulled on Monday all sentences against former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, which for now restores his political rights and allows him to run for the presidency in the 2022 election.

Justice Fachin wrote in his decision that the Curitiba’s 13th Federal Court, which sentenced Lula twice for corruption and money laundering, did not have the jurisdiction to put him on trial. Fachin declared the “nullity” of the acts, including the receipt of complaints against Lula including the four cases in which the former president is investigated.

Lula had been prevented from running for president in 2018 because he was convicted in both first and second instances in one of the cases, with a sentence of 12 years and seven months for allegedly receiving an apartment worth about $1 million as a bribe. He was imprisoned for 580 days, until November 2019, due to that conviction.

Due to a previous STF decision, which barred the arrest of convicts at second instance, Lula obtained the right to await in freedom the exhaustion of all appeals in the triplex’s lawsuit.

In his decision, Fachin affirms that the cases must now be sent to the federal court of Brazil’s Federal District, where it can begin again from the start.

The conducts of former judge Sergio Moro, who was minister of justice under President Jair Bolsonaro, and of Car Wash prosecutors have been strongly questioned after what became known as “Vaza-Jato,” leakage of messages exchanged between Moro and prosecutors on the Car Wash operations.