translated from Spanish: Mexico government applauded Lula’s release

The Government of Mexico on Friday applauded the release of former Brazilian staff Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva after more than a year and a half imprisoned for two corruption convictions.” We welcome the Brazilian justice decision that today determined the freedom of former President Lula following the ruling adopted by the Supreme Court of Brazil,” said the Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Latin America and the Mexican Caribbean, Maximiliano Reyes, who has accompanied his message with the label ‘Justice’. Lula has been released from prison in accordance with a recent Supreme Court (STF) ruling that allows her to await a final sentence of both proceedings. The STF decided on Thursday, by six votes in favor and five against, to repeal the law that convicts begin to serve their sentences after losing their first appeal and instead to be allowed to exhaust the lengthy appeals process before entering Prison. According to the National Council of Justice (CNJ), the ruling affects nearly 4,800 prisoners, including the top convicted of the largest corruption investigation in Brazilian history, known as Operation ‘Lava Jato’. Lula’s release does not mean that he has been exonerated, but will wait free to exhaust the remedies he has received to date and which could increase, as he has been charged in five other cases arising from ‘Lava Jato’ and has three outstanding complaints. THE CONDENA AGAINST LULALula was sentenced in July 2017 to nine and a half years in prison for accepting a luxury triplex as payment for the political favors he did to the construction company OAS. Subsequently, the sentence was changed, first to twelve years and one month and finally to eight years and ten months. Last February, the former union leader received a second conviction for corruption. This time, twelve years and eleven months in prison for the reforms that the construction companies OAS and Odebrecht made on a rural property attributed to Lula in Atibaia, Sao Paulo, also as payment for their political favors. Lula has fought both flaws by all means. In the case of the luxury triplex, he has elevated him to the highest judicial body in Brazil, claiming that the entire proceedings are null and forall because of the alleged bias of the judge in charge of it, the now Minister of Justice, Sergio Moro. The other case is in the second instance. Since last September he has been in semi-open rule because he has already served one-sixth of the first conviction, but has refused to enjoy it on the grounds that it is only a handout in the face of what he claims, his freedom. The former tenant of planalto Palace has become the highest-ranking prisoner of ‘Operation Lava Jato’, which investigates the collection of bribes in exchange for political benefits. The corruption scandal has splattered every party as well as businessmen.

Original source in Spanish