No evidence incriminating Lula, lawyers say
The defense attorneys of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his wife Marisa Letícia rejected the charges filed against the couple on Wednesday (Sept. 14) by prosecutors working in Operation Car Wash, a massive investigation into the Petrobras corruption scandal. In a press statement, the lawyers maintained that a triplex apartment in the beach city of Guarujá, São Paulo, does not belong to Lula and Marisa, but to OAS construction company.
Federal prosecutors allege that Lula received improper advantages from companies in the Petrobras corruption scheme, including the beach apartment, which, according to them, had its renovation paid by OAS. The company is also accused of signing contracts in the millions to store the former president's personal property. These advantages are allegedly worth more than $1.1 million altogether.
“The fact remains that Lula and Marisa are not the owners of the apartment—it belongs to OAS,” say the former president's defenders. According to them, the prosecution “has singled out Lula as the 'conductor of a criminal orchestra', but forgot the most important—presenting evidence of wrongdoing.”
In the opinion of lawyers, the charges are an “affront to the democratic rule of law and the intelligence of Brazilians.” They say Lula has been under relentless scrutiny ever since Operation Car Wash began, but nothing was found. “So they came up with this farcical story. Lula's crime for Operation Car Wash [investigators] was being Brazil's president,” they said.
According to Cristiano Martins, lawyer former president of the lawyer and his wife, the accusations against their clients have a political motivation—they are intended to prevent Lula from running for president in 2018. For the lawyer, “there is a situation of persecution and, more than that, real intention of knocking former president Lula out of the political and election scene for 2018,” he said.
Translated by Mayra Borges
Fonte: No evidence incriminating Lula, lawyers say
