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Former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) took 28 million Brazilians out of poverty and raised the image of the country abroad, but now, almost a decade later, the metalworker will go down in history as the first president of Brazil imprisoned for corruption. EFE / Sebastião Moreira
Former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) took 28 million Brazilians out of poverty and raised the image of the country abroad, but now, almost a decade later, the metalworker will go down in history as the first president of Brazil…

Lula Da Silva: once adored, now condemned

Former President of Brazil and one of the most loved politicians in the world, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been sentenced to 12 years in prison on corruption…

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Another president of Brazil has a conflicting political ending; it seems that the Latin American country will never rest from political instability.

This time, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was president between 2003 and 2010, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for corruption.

Lula Da Silva is the most important victim of the so-called Operation "Lava Jato" or "carwash", carried out by the Brazilian Federal Police since 2014, investigating a suspicious money laundering structure that would have managed to move around 3 billion dollars.

According to the Federal Police, this would be "the largest corruption investigation in the history of Brazil" and with a large number of defendants.

Lula was arrested in March 2016 to be questioned for his alleged participation, and the then president Dilma Rousseff tried to save him by naming him Minister of the Civil House, trying to grant him judicial immunity.

After legal disputes between the Federal Court of Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro, Judge Gilmar Mendes of the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil definitively suspended the appointment of Lula, allowing his first sentence to nine years and six months in prison for passive corruption.

As the newspaper El País recalls, Lula's participation would have been related to influence peddling, after being investigated for "the sale of provisional measures that benefited car manufacturers."

During the same year, President Rousseff was suspended from office "for adulterating public accounts", and her vice-president Michel Temer assumes the interim presidency.

Thereafter, the accusations against Lula did nothing but grow. Money laundering, concealment of assets and obstruction of justice were some of the charges that adhered to his record, allowing the prosecution to continue with a lawsuit against him.

As the Spanish media recalls, the case finally broke "the myth of Lula", a politician who had come to power for being "an incorruptible shoeshine boy, a friend of the poor and not of money" and who, in spite of everything, was still the favorite of the country.

With more than 80% of popular support, Lula decided to challenge his fate and decided to launch himself as a candidate for presidential re-election in 2018, assuring before judge Sérgio Moro that he was "a victim of a witch-hunt."

Despite the appeals filed by his defense before the court, the judges dismissed the requests and gave the green light to a 12-year sentence for corruption on March 27, 2018, which triggered demonstrations throughout the country in favor of Lula and an escalation of violence in the streets.

Finally, on April 4, the Supreme Court carried out the final vote for four and a half hours of debates, where finally the imprisonment of the former president was resolved, giving him a period of 48 hours to voluntarily surrender.

It seems that the importance of Lula in the collective unconscious of his country will not diminish with his imprisonment, since before voluntarily surrendering to the police, Lula made the union of the metallurgists of Sao Bernardo do Campo - the place where he began his political career forty years ago - his last scene.

Hundreds of people on the streets - most of the Workers Without Home Movement (MTST) demonstrated with signs following closely the last vote of the Court and were accompanied during the following days with supporters of the former president, who expected him not to surrender.

Finally, on Saturday, Lula walked to a Federal Police vehicle and was transferred in a police helicopter to the city of Curitiba in the south of the country, according to the BBC.

There, Brazil’s adored one will live like a convicted in a special cell of 15 meters, during the next 12 years.

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