{"id":21273,"date":"2018-11-06T05:22:44","date_gmt":"2018-11-06T05:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=21273"},"modified":"2018-11-06T05:22:44","modified_gmt":"2018-11-06T05:22:44","slug":"ex-brazil-president-lula-calls-for-release-accuses-judge-of-bias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=21273","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Brazil President Lula calls for release, accuses judge of bias"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Former Brazil President Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva<\/a>\u00a0has\u00a0challenged his corruption conviction, arguing that the judge behind his conviction has “proven his bias” by accepting a cabinet post\u00a0under a political rival.<\/p>\n

The petition filed on Monday with Brazil<\/a>‘s highest court asks Lula, who is currently serving a 12-year sentence, to be freed and his conviction overturned.<\/p>\n

Lula’s plea came days after president-elect\u00a0<\/span>Jair Bolsonaro<\/a>\u00a0announced\u00a0Judge Sergio Moro as the next justice minister of the South American country.<\/p>\n

Lula’s lawyers have long argued that Moro was biased and that charges against the former president were trumped up to keep him from running for the post again.<\/p>\n

Lula was leading the run-up to the deeply polarised election this year, but his conviction in a corruption case prevented him from running<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Brazil’s “Clean Slate” law forbids people with serious criminal convictions from standing for office within eight years of being found guilty.<\/p>\n

Controversial appointment<\/h2>\n

Moro agreed to be Bolsonaro’s justice minister, saying his new position will allow him to strengthen his battle against corruption.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The perspective of implementing a strong anti-corruption and anti-organised crime agenda, with respect for the constitution, the law and rights, led me to take this decision,” Moro said in a statement on Sunday.<\/p>\n

“This means in practice to consolidate the advances against crime and corruption in recent years,” he said.<\/p>\n

Lula’s leftist Workers’ Party (PT) expressed its anger and disappointment over the decision.<\/p>\n

“Moro’s partiality was always blatant,” the party tweeted. “The attempt to influence elections has taken place since 2014. The appointment [of Sergio Moro] as minister of Bolsonaro only shows the political interests of the minister.”<\/p>\n

\n

A parcialidade de Moro sempre foi flagrante durante as decisoes na Lava Jato. A tentativa de influenciar em elei\u00e7\u00f5es ocorreram desde 2014. A indicacao como ministro de Bolsonaro s\u00f3 escancara os interesses pol\u00edticos do magistrado durante a sua atuacao. https:\/\/t.co\/uYuiP9kLZ7<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/vWLRLzl8Zp<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 PT Brasil (@ptbrasil) November 5, 2018<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Car Wash scandal\u00a0<\/h2>\n

Moro has been hailed for investigating what came to be known as the “Car Wash<\/a>” corruption scandal, launched in 2014, which centred on Brazil’s state-run oil company, Petrobras, and involved 11 countries.<\/p>\n

The probe uncovered elaborate schemes<\/a> in which construction companies received bloated contracts and then kicked back billions of dollars in bribes to politicians and other government officials for more than a decade.<\/p>\n

The investigation led to the jailing of some of Brazil’s biggest names, including Lula, who was convicted for trading favours with construction company, Grupo OAS, for the promise of a beachfront apartment.<\/p>\n

Lula began serving his sentence in April this year, which effectively denied him another run for the office of the president.<\/p>\n

The Car Wash cases made Moro a wildly popular figure with Brazilians exhausted by numerous stories of politicians plundering government coffers.<\/p>\n

Moro is now expected to oversee the federal and highway police, the penitentiary system, immigration and several other agencies employing thousands of people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Brazil President Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva\u00a0has\u00a0challenged his corruption conviction, arguing that the judge behind his conviction has “proven his bias” by accepting a cabinet post\u00a0under a political rival. The petition filed on Monday with Brazil’s highest court asks Lula, who is currently serving a 12-year sentence, to be freed and his conviction overturned.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":21274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}