Brazil’s Lula Must Begin Prison Sentence During Appeals, High Court Rules
April 5, 2018 by admin
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Brazilian former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva speaks on March 19 in Brazil. He lead in opinion polls and says the case against him is to prevent him from running for president again.
Itamar Aguiar/AFP/Getty Images
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Brazilian former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva speaks on March 19 in Brazil. He lead in opinion polls and says the case against him is to prevent him from running for president again.
Itamar Aguiar/AFP/Getty Images
Brazil’s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will be sent to prison while he appeals a corruption conviction, after a late-night ruling by Brazil’s highest court early Thursday.
In a 6-5 decision, the Supreme Federal Tribunal rejected da Silva’s request to remain free while he appeals a 12-year prison sentence for corruption.
The 72-year-old leftist politician who served as the country’s president between 2003 and 2011 had his sights set on winning back the office in the election in October, a prospect now very remote despite his lead in opinion polls.
Lula, as he is known, has said the case against him is politically motivated and designed to keep him from running. Many Brazilians still see the former leader as a champion of the poor.
“The Brazilian people have the right to vote for Lula, the candidate of hope,” Lula’s Workers’ Party wrote on Twitter after the announcement, according to an Associated Press translation. “The PT [Workers' Party] will defend this candidacy on the streets and in every court until the last consequences.”
“There is no justice in this decision,” the group wrote in another tweet.
An arrest warrant is reportedly expected in a matter of days.
Lula was convicted in July of corruption and money laundering and sentenced to nine and a half years in prison. “Judge Sergio Moro found the popular politician guilty of illegally taking more than $1 million in kickbacks from an engineering company, using the money to refurbish a beachfront apartment,” NPR’s Colin Dwyer reported at the time.
A three-judge appeals panel then upheld that conviction in January — and increased Lula’s sentence to 12 years.
A sprawling corruption investigation involving the state-run oil company Petrobras, dubbed Operation Car Wash, “has ensnared many of the country’s politicians and business figures in high-profile allegations,” as The Two-Way reported, including the current conservative president, Michel Temer, and executives at the meatpacking company JBS.
The case has triggered protests in dozens of Brazilian cities, NPR’s Philip Reeves reports, with large crowds protesting both for and against Lula.
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One Killed as Fire Erupts at Moscow Children’s Mall, Hundreds Evacuated
April 5, 2018 by admin
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A fire has broken out at a children’s shopping mall in northeastern Moscow, reportedly killing at least one person, two weeks after 64 people were killed in a mall fire in Siberia.
Around 600 visitors were evacuated from the “Perseus for Kids” shopping center after a fire ripped through the top floor of the four-story building, the RIA Novosti news agency reported on Wednesday.
“The victim, who has been evacuated from a burning building, died in an ambulance. He could not be saved,” the state-run TASS news agency cited an unnamed ambulance service official as saying.
A Moscow Emergency Situations Ministry branch spokesman told reporters the victim was a mall employee who mixed up the emergency exit, instead advancing toward a smoke-filled area.
The spokesman said that three firefighters had been injured.
The fire was reportedly assigned a “second category,” one point short of the worst on a five-point scale, the source was cited as saying. Videos and photos posted online showed plumes of smoke rising from windows in the mall’s top floor.
An unnamed Emergencies Ministry Moscow branch representative later told TASS that the “open flames” have been put out.
Russia’s Investigative Committee announced that it had opened a criminal case into “death by negligence.”
The incident comes after 41 children and 23 adults were killed in a fire that swept the top floors of the Winter Cherry mall in the Siberian city of Kemerovo on March 25. Authorities have detained several suspects in the investigation into the national tragedy, naming a short-circuit as the most likely cause of the fire.
This story is being updated for developments.