Brazil - Former
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva turned himself in
to police on Saturday, ending a day-long standoff to begin
serving a 12-year prison sentence for corruption that derails
his bid to return to power.
Lula was flown by police to the southern city of Curitiba,
where he was tried and convicted late last year, and taken to
the federal police headquarters there to serve his sentence.
Protesters supporting Lula clashed with police outside the walls
of the building. Officers used stun grenades, tear gas and
rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.
In a fiery speech hours earlier to a crowd of supporters of
his Workers Party outside the union building in Sao Paulo,
Brazil's first working class president insisted on his innocence
and called his bribery conviction a political crime, but said he
would turn himself in.
"I will comply with the order," he told the cheering crowd.
"I'm not above the law. If I didn't believe in the law, I
wouldn't have started a political party. I would have started a
revolution."
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Lula, who faces six more trials on corruption charges,
finally ended the standoff when he moved out in a convoy of
black police SUVs after pushing his way out of the steel workers
union headquarters where he had taken refuge. He entered police
custody more than 24 hours after a court deadline on Friday
afternoon.
Lula's imprisonment removes Brazil's most influential
political figure and front-runner from this year's presidential
campaign, throwing the race wide open and strengthening the odds
of a more centrist candidate prevailing, according to analysts
and political foes.
It also marks the end of an era for Brazil's left, which was
out in force in the streets outside of the union headquarters in
the industrial suburb of Sao Paulo where Lula's political career
began four decades ago as a union organizer.
The throngs of supporters, which began gathering when he
arrived late on Thursday night, dissuaded police from trying to
take him into custody and heightened concerns about a violent
showdown.
Supporters blocked Lula's first attempt to leave the union
building on Saturday afternoon, pushing back against fellow
party members trying to open the gate for his car to leave.
Workers Party chief Gleisi Hoffmann pleaded with supporters to
let him exit.
Lula was convicted of taking bribes, including renovation of
a three-storey seaside apartment that he denies ever owning, from
an engineering firm in return for help landing public contracts.
"I'm the only person being prosecuted over an apartment that
isn't mine," insisted Lula, standing on a sound truck alongside
his impeached handpicked successor Dilma Rousseff and leaders of
other left-wing parties.
A Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Saturday rejected the
latest plea by Lula's legal team, which argued they had not
exhausted procedural appeals when a judge issued the order to
turn himself in.
Under Brazilian electoral law, a candidate is forbidden from
running for office for eight years after being found guilty of a
crime. Rare exceptions have been made in the past, and the final
decision would be made by the top electoral court if and when
Lula officially files to be a candidate.
The union where Lula, 72, sought refuge was the launch pad
for his career in the late 1970s leading nationwide strikes that
helped to end Brazil's 1964-85 military dictatorship.
Lula's everyman style and unvarnished speeches electrified
masses and eventually won him two terms as president, from 2003
to 2011, when he oversaw robust economic growth and falling
inequality amid a commodities boom.
"Those who condemn me without proof know that I am innocent
and I governed honestly," Lula said in a video message to his
supporters. "Those who persecute me can do what they want to me,
but they will never imprison our dreams."