Ex-president of Brazil gets prison sentence
10-year sentence a big setback for Silva’s comeback
The former president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is found guilty of corruption and money laundering and sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison in a stunning setback.
RIO DE JANEIRO — The former president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was found guilty of corruption and money laundering on Wednesday and sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison, a stunning setback for a politician who has wielded enormous influence across Latin America for decades.
The case against Silva, who raised Brazil’s profile on the world stage as president from 2003 to 2010, stemmed from charges that he and his wife illegally received about $1.1 million in improvements and expenses from a construction company for a beachfront apartment.
In exchange, prosecutors said, the company was able to obtain lucrative contracts from Petrobras, the state-controlled oil giant.
Plagued by scandals, Silva’s leftist Workers’ Party lost the presidency last year when the Senate impeached his hand-picked successor, Dilma Rousseff, in a power struggle that consumed the nation.
Silva, 71, can appeal the conviction, but the ruling could deliver a crippling blow to his plans for a political comeback.
He has called the allegations against him a “farce” and has announced his intention to run for president in next year’s election. He had been widely considered a leading contender.
But Judge Sergio Moro, who issued Wednesday’s verdict, said that under Brazilian law, Silva would be ineligible to run for office for twice as long as his sentence, or 19 years. Unless Silva prevails on appeal, that finding leaves the Workers’ Party without an obvious candidate in next year’s election.
The conviction is the latest salvo by Brazil’s judicial branch, which has declared war on the country’s entrenched culture of corruption. Brazil’s current president, Michel Temer, was charged last month with corruption, part of a nearconstant stream of allegations and charges that have ripped through the nation’s political establishment in recent years.
Moro, who oversees cases stemming from a broad graft scandal surrounding the state-controlled oil company, said Silva’s actions were part of a “scheme of systemic corruption” in Petrobras.
“The president of the republic has enormous responsibilities,” Moro wrote. “As such, his culpability is also” enormous when he commits crimes, he added.
Silva presided over a period of robust economic growth in Brazil and remains a widely popular figure, credited with leading a social transformation that lifted millions from poverty in a nation with one of the world’s biggest disparities between rich and poor.