A second-instance court in Brazil denied an appeal by former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and on Wednesday kept the sentence of 17 years in prison handed down by the same court in November against the former mandaario – for passive corruption and money laundering – official sources reported.
The judges of the eighth chamber of the Federal Regional Court of the Fourth Region (TRF-4) unanimously rejected the appeals brought by the former member’s defense attorneys and supported the decision they had made in November, following a virtual trial due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In the defense’s appeal, which sought to reverse the conviction, Lula’s lawyers called for a review of doubts, understandings and “contradictions” in the process. However, Judge Joao Pedro Gebran Neto of TRF-4 and instructor of the lava jato court cases considered that the points expressed by Lula’s lawyers “demonstrate a nonconformism” and seek a new discussion about “what has already been decided”, according to a statement.
The court also denied a request that the virtual trial, adopted due to the COVID-19 crisis, be suspended and postponed for a face-to-face session. For its part, Lula’s defense called the conviction “unfair and arbitrary” and criticized the fact that lawyers were unable to participate in the virtual trial and “make the interventions provided for in law.”
“That situation already constitutes violation of the constitutional guarantee of the broad defense and violation of the prerogatives of lawyers,” Lula’s lead lawyer Cristiano Zanin Martins said in a statement.
Lula also criticized the decision, although she stated on her social media that she “was expecting it”. “They will be unmasked. I hope I’m alive to see him. I’m from a land where we like to fight a lot,” the former germanist stressed on his Twitter account.
With today’s ruling, the judges of the eighth chamber of the TRF-4 thus maintained their decision in November, when they unanimously raised Lula’s sentence against the 12 years and 11 months in prison in the first instance in the so-called “Atibaia case” to 17 years and 1 month in prison.
Another conviction passed in the third instance, after the Justice proved that he received an apartment on a beach in Guarujá, in Sao Paulo, in exchange for favors to the construction company OAS in contracts with Petrobras, and for which Lula spent 580 days in prison.
