Lula to be part of new probe

Brazil’s former President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva will be probed for alleged membership in a crime ring that organised the mass looting of the state oil company Petrobras, the Supreme Court said yesterday.

Justice Teori Zavascki authorised the inclusion of Lula — who already faces related corruption charges — in a group of politicians suspected of organising an embezzlement ring at Petrobras.

The politicians are from Lula’s leftist Workers’ Party, which ruled Brazil the last 13 years; the centre- right Brazilian Democratic Movement Party ( BDMP) of new President Michel Temer; and its conservative ally the Progressive Party ( PP).

Prosecutors had previously named Lula, 70, as the mastermind of the huge corruption scheme in which a network of executives, politicians and big contractors plundered Brazil’s flagship national company.

Money went into party coffers and private accounts in a dizzying pay- toplay network of bribes and inflated contracts dished out by Petrobras to firms like Brazilian international construction colossus Odebrecht.

The probe into the scheme, codenamed Operation Carwash, has seen a who’s who of Brazilians investigated, charged or convicted, shaking the country’s elite to the core.

No concrete evidence has been presented so far of Lula’s role as the ringleader. However, Prosecutor General Rodrigo Janot asked the Supreme Court to put Lula in the crosshairs of the new probe, which targets “an organised criminal group led and organised by political figures”.