Brazilian ex-president released from prison
CURITIBA, Brazil — Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva walked out of prison on Friday, injecting new energy into a weakened opposition. His exit drew cheers from supporters who had gathered to celebrate the release of the man who rose from poverty to lead the country through an economic boom.
Hundreds of red-shirted Brazilians applauded the popular 74-year-old politician as he walked out of the federal police building in the southern city of Curitiba. His release came less than a day after the Supreme Court ruled that a person can be imprisoned only after all the appeals have been exhausted.
Mr. da Silva, who is appealing his conviction of corruption and money laundering in connection with the purchase of a beachfront apartment in Sao Paulo state, embraced his daughter, raised his fist to the sky and made his way onto a stage surrounded by his girlfriend and others.
“You have no idea the dimension of the significance of me being here with you,” Mr. da Silva told jubilant supporters, thanking individual union leaders and members of his leftist Workers’ Party, known as PT. “They didn’t arrest a man. They tried to detain an idea. An idea doesn’t disappear.”
Mr. da Silva, who is universally known as Lula, has been imprisoned since April 2018. His release will likely reinvigorate an opposition weakened by corruption scandals, the impeachment of Mr. da Silva’s handpicked successor, Mr. da Silva’s imprisonment and, more recently, a clobbering in the 2018 general elections. But it’s not clear what political role he will seek now that he is free.
While he is barred from office as his appeals run their course, the former leader of the Workers’ Party remains a popular figure on the left. Still, he could find himself back in jail if his appeals don’t go his way.
His release also could anger right-leaning Brazilians who had viewed his imprisonment as proof Brazil was finally serious about putting an end to impunity. Mr. da Silva’s 2018 jailing drove the two sides of Brazil’s already-polarized society even further apart, and his release is set to reignite tensions.