Rousseff, lawmakers barred from visiting Lula in jail

On Monday (Apr. 23), a trial judge in Curitiba rejected a request from former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and a committee of Congress members to visit ex-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, imprisoned since April 7 at a Federal Police unit in Paraná, south Brazil.

Also denied were the motions filed by Ciro Gomes, soon to become presidential candidate, by Senator Gleisi Hoffman, head of Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT), and by São Paulo City Councilor Eduardo Suplicy, also a member of the PT. Argentine writer and Nobel peace prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff also had their attempts to visit the onetime leader thwarted.

Ex-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is imprisoned since April 7 at a Federal Police unit in Paraná, south Brazil (André Richter - Special envoy)

The group of lawmakers planned to inspect Lula’s incarceration conditions in loco. “On April 17, 2018, an inquiry was conducted by the Senate’s Human Rights and Legislative Participation Commission. There is neither reason nor need to re-conduct such a measure,” wrote Judge Carolina Moura Lebbos, in charge of overseeing the execution of Lula’s sentence.

Lebbos argued that only family members and attorneys are allowed to visit inmates at that prison facility—a decision based on a “general limitation regarding prison visiting,” as prisoners are in the same building where other routine activities are carried out by the police, including contact with the public.

The judge went on to note that the rule applies for all inmates: “Broadening the scope of visiting rules for one inmate—while the required logistic needs must be taken into account—could hinder the enforcement of the measures necessary for ensuring the visiting rights of the other inmates.”

Federal prosecutors said they see no obstacles to granting requests to visit Lula, as long as the previously fixed dates and times are observed.