http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/11/world/americas/brazil-seeks-arrest-of-ex-president-da-silva-in-graft-inquiry.html?ref=americas&_r=0
RIO DE JANEIRO — Prosecutors in
Brazil are seeking the arrest of the country’s former president,
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, by far the biggest figure to be ensnared by the sweeping corruption investigations that have upended the nation and rattled almost every level of government.
Federal prosecutors raided Mr. da Silva’s home in São Paulo last week, hauling him off for questioning in an operation that drew protesters to the street. Then this week, state prosecutors in São Paulo filed charges against him in a related corruption case and now want him arrested.
“This is an attempt to muzzle a political leader,” Mr. da Silva’s lawyer, Cristiano Zanin Martins, said in a statement.
A judge must rule on the prosecutors’ request, but in the meantime, the unfolding political drama has the country on tenterhooks.
But as
Brazil reels from
graft scandals and its
worst economic crisis in decades, the heroic narrative surrounding Mr. da Silva, 70, is coming under intense strain. Instead of symbolizing Brazil’s triumphs, he is emerging as an emblem of the scandal-plagued political establishment.
“I simply feel deceived,” said Carla Martins, 65, a manicurist who sells baked snacks on the street in Rio de Janeiro to make ends meet. “What hurts the most is that he’s the one the Brazilian people hoped for.”
Mr. da Silva is far from alone in facing legal problems. He is the founder and face of the Workers’ Party, the leftist movement that has governed Brazil since
2003. It came to power vowing to represent the masses and stamp out the corruption and impunity that had long characterized the country’s ruling classes.
Now, Mr. da Silva’s handpicked successor, President
Dilma Rousseff, is fighting to remain in office, fending off
impeachment proceedings on charges of
using money from state banks to cover budget shortfalls. Confidants of Mr. da Silva are in jail on charges of cashing in from billions in bribes surrounding the state-controlled oil company, Petrobras. And investigators are looking into whether proceeds from the scheme were used to finance Mr. da Silva’s and Ms. Rousseff’s
presidential campaigns.
“It’s true that the lower classes have more love for Lula because he invested in programs they benefit from,” said Dayse Gomes, 24, a student in Rio de Janeiro who aspires to be a social worker. “But Lula can’t hide behind those achievements, proclaiming that he’s so well behaved. I’m certain that he’s guilty. All of our politicians are corrupt regardless of their party. That is our largest problem in Brazil.”
The core of Mr. da Silva’s troubles involves his close ties to some of Brazil’s most powerful business leaders, including figures imprisoned on corruption charges in a
vast scandal engulfing Petrobras, the national oil company, in which investigators say nearly $3 billion in bribes were paid.
“Lula’s dealings with construction tycoons and ranchers have nothing in common with his militant origins as a leftist,” said Marcelo Rubens Paiva, a columnist for the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo. “He was hanging out with figures that comrades on the left should be combating,” he added. “So, let Lula explain the origins of his assets.”
Mr. da Silva has repeatedly insisted that he is innocent of any wrongdoing, assailing the investigations as efforts to smear him and his Workers’ Party.
“If there’s one thing I’m proud of in this country, it’s that there is not a living soul more honest than me,” Mr. da Silva said recently. “Not in the Federal Police, or in the Public Ministry, or in evangelical churches.”
His foundation criticized the move by the lead prosecutor in the state case, Cássio Conserino, saying in a statement that Mr. da Silva was being unfairly targeted.
“This measure against the ex-president is yet another sad attempt” by the prosecutor “to use his post for political ends,” the institute said.
The focus on Mr. da Silva’s business affairs offers a view into how the former president sided with the same elites whom he rallied against as a union leader campaigning as an anticorruption outsider.
In the federal case against him, prosecutors say that five of the builders tainted in the Petrobras scandal paid Mr. da Silva the equivalent of about $2.7 million for speeches since 2010, when he left office. In addition, they say Mr. da Silva’s foundation received about $5.5 million in donations from the same companies, some of which was channeled to one of Mr. da Silva’s sons.
Federal prosecutors are trying to determine whether the money used to pay Mr. da Silva was obtained in the Petrobras scheme, and whether he illegally lobbied on behalf of the companies in a quid pro quo.
In the state case, investigators claim that a construction company paid for about $200,000 in renovations at a beachfront apartment. Mr. da Silva denies owning the property, but prosecutors say he had control of it and tried to mislead investigators about acquiring it.
The scandal grew more serious for Mr. da Silva this week when prosecutors in São Paulo State charged Mr. da Silva with money laundering and misrepresentation of assets in connection with the penthouse apartment in the coastal city of Guarujá, crimes that could involve jail sentences.
The state prosecutors in São Paulo justified their request to arrest Mr. da Silva by contending that he could mobilize a “violent support network” against their scrutiny into his dealings. As part of their rationale, they cited a video distributed on social media by a legislator from the Workers’ Party in which Mr. da Silva is seen in the background talking on the phone with Ms. Rousseff while
disparaging the federal case against him.
Mr. da Silva’s supporters are lashing out, arguing that powerful media groups are conspiring to topple Ms. Rousseff and to prevent him from running for president again in 2018, an ambition Mr. da Silva has embraced.
Emir Sader, a sociologist and commentator who is one of Mr. da Silva’s most outspoken supporters, said the evidence against the former president had been fabricated or based on promises to ease penalties on business figures who had reached plea deals with investigators.
“Lula is guilty of enabling Brazilians to eat three meals a day,” Mr. Sader said in an essay. “He’s guilty of helping the Brazilian people to finally conquer their dignity, which is why he’s condemned by the elites, the victims of Lula’s success.”
Supporters are also comparing the amounts that Mr. da Silva was paid with the bribes pocketed in the Petrobras scheme. One former executive at Petrobras has pledged to return $100 million in ill-gotten gains to the authorities as part of a plea deal.
Even some of Mr. da Silva’s strident critics questioned the need for the former president to be arrested.
Diego Escosteguy, the editor in chief of Época, a weekly magazine that has published investigative articles on Mr. da Silva’s business dealings, called the request “extremely fragile.”
“One thing is the quality of the indictment for crimes attributed to the ex-president, another is the quality of the request for his arrest,” he said on Twitter.
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