Lula trial and arrest temporarily suspended by top court

Brazilian Supreme Court justices have suspended the trial dedicated to examining former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s preventive habeas corpus petition. The examination will be resumed on April 4.

Proceedings were postponed because justices spent all the session time in the 7–4 vote that decided the matter was indeed admissible. The matter itself can now be brought to trial, but, as it had grown late, the authorities chose to put it off.

After the sitting was suspended, most justices voted to grant a preliminary injunction banning Lula’s imprisonment until the session is resumed.

The habeas corpus petition was an attempt by Lula’s attorneys to prevent his arrest, ruled to take place after Monday (Mar. 26), when his last appeal is slated to be examined.

The appeals court tasked with the cases opened as part of Operation Car Wash has sentenced the onetime president to 12 years and one month in jail in the case involving a triplex apartment in coastal Guarujá, São Paulo.

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira