Sao Bernardo Do Campo,
\nEx-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil\u2019s polarising election frontrunner and leftist icon, was negotiating his surrender after dramatically skipping a first deadline today to start his 12-year prison sentence for corruption.<\/p>\n
Holed up with thousands of cheering supporters in the metalworkers\u2019 union building in his hometown of Sao Bernardo do Campo, near Sao Paulo, the 72-year-old let the 5:00 pm (2000 GMT) deadline pass without public comment.<\/p>\n
This raised the temperature in the standoff between the leftist former two-term president and Judge Sergio Moro, who heads the mammoth \u201cCar Wash\u201d anti-graft probe and who ordered Lula\u2019s imprisonment.<\/p>\n
Given that Lula was effectively surrounded by a human shield, it was clear that a forcible arrest attempt would trigger violence.<\/p>\n
But authorities took pains to reduce tensions, downplaying Lula\u2019s defiance and stressing that he was not considered a fugitive\u2014something that would trigger a preventative arrest warrant.<\/p>\n
\u201cLula did not comply with a judicial order,\u201d a spokesman for Moro told AFP, \u201cbut everyone knows where he is. He\u2019s not hiding or on the run.\u201d Politicians from Lula\u2019s Workers Party said he would remain in Sao Bernardo do Campo overnight and that his lawyers were in close negotiations with police over the time and place of the arrest.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a discussion between police and the ex-president\u2019s lawyers and the party is following this. The idea is to avoid the judge ordering preventative arrest, which would aggravate the situation,\u201d said Congressman Carlos Zarattini.<\/p>\n
Senator Gleisi Hoffmann tweeted that a Catholic Mass would take place at the union building today in memory of Lula\u2019s late wife Marisa Leticia, who died last year and would now be turning 68.<\/p>\n
According to varying Brazilian media reports, Lula was considering surrendering after the Mass or possibly holding out through the weekend.<\/p>\n
Much of yesterday, Lula waited in hope that the country\u2019s top appeals court, the Superior Tribunal of Justice, would temporarily suspend his arrest warrant. However, the petition was rejected shortly before the deadline expired.<\/p>\n
Yet another appeal for an injunction against the arrest was filed late Friday with the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Moro had given Lula 24 hours to surrender voluntarily to police and begin incarceration in the southern city of Curitiba. Moro said the cell, a separate room with its own toilet, was ready, and that Lula would not be handcuffed if he came quietly.<\/p>\n
Lula was convicted last year of taking a luxury apartment as a kickback from a big construction company. He lost a lower court appeal in January and saw his sentence increased from nine to 12 years.<\/p>\n
To his Workers\u2019 Party faithful, Lula is a victim of an out-of-control judiciary preventing him from returning to power.<\/p>\n
They remember him for a 2003-2010 presidency that saw tens of millions lifted from poverty and Brazil rise on the world stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cLula is innocent, Lula for president!\u201d supporters chanted outside the union building.<\/p>\n
Renata Swiecik, an unemployed mother of four who had joined the crowd, urged Lula not to hand himself over.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are here to resist to the end. Lula will not be a prisoner in 2018, he\u2019ll be president and help the people once more,\u201d said Swiecik, 31.<\/p>\n
However, Lula\u2019s imminent arrest is being celebrated by many Brazilians.<\/p>\n
The \u201cCar Wash\u201d probe, which has revealed systemic, high-level embezzlement and bribery throughout business and politics over the last four years, is wildly popular.<\/p>\n
Detractors say that Lula epitomizes Brazil\u2019s corruption-riddled elite and his conviction is the biggest \u201cCar Wash\u201d scalp by far.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want Lula in prison, I want a better future and with him in the leadership we won\u2019t have that,\u201d said Maura Moraes de Oliveira, 51, who works as a maid in Curitiba.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only Lula should be locked up, but all the corrupt, a complete cleaning.\u201d Operation \u201cCar Wash\u201d was named after the service station where agents initially investigated a minor money laundering scheme in 2014, before realizing that they\u2019d stumbled on a gargantuan web of embezzlement and bribery at state oil company Petrobras and right through the political classes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sao Bernardo Do Campo, Ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil\u2019s polarising election frontrunner and leftist icon, was negotiating his surrender after dramatically skipping a first deadline today to start his 12-year prison sentence for corruption. Holed up with thousands of cheering supporters in the metalworkers\u2019 union building in his hometown of Sao Bernardo do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27197,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27196"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27198,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27196\/revisions\/27198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}