{"id":335994,"date":"2017-07-12T19:16:10","date_gmt":"2017-07-12T19:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=335994"},"modified":"2017-07-12T19:16:10","modified_gmt":"2017-07-12T19:16:10","slug":"brazils-ex-president-lula-convicted-of-corruption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=335994","title":{"rendered":"Brazil’s ex-President Lula convicted of corruption"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been convicted of corruption charges and sentenced to nine and a half years in prison.<\/p>\n

The judge ruled he could remain free pending an appeal.<\/p>\n

Lula has rejected claims that he received an apartment as a bribe in a corruption scandal linked to state oil company Petrobras.<\/p>\n

He says the trial is politically motivated and has strongly denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

The case is the first of five charges against him.<\/p>\n

Running again?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lula served eight years as president until 2011 and has expressed interest in running again in next year’s elections for the left-wing Workers’ Party.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, a judge found him guilty of accepting bribes from engineering firm OAS in the form of a beachfront apartment in return for his help in winning contracts with the state oil company.<\/p>\n

The head of the Workers’ Party, Senator Gleisi Hoffmann, hit out at the ruling, saying it was designed to stop Lula standing for office.<\/p>\n

She said the party would protest against the decision.<\/p>\n

The BBC’s Katy Watson in Sao Paulo says Lula remains a popular politician and the sentence will deeply divide Brazil.<\/p>\n

\"ProtesterImage copyright<\/span>GETTY IMAGES<\/span><\/span>
Image caption<\/span>Many protesters are calling for current President Michel Temer to resign over corruption allegations<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The charges Lula faces all relate to the Car Wash scandal, the nickname for Brazil’s biggest ever corruption probe.<\/p>\n

Operation Car Wash was launched three years ago amid escalating public anger over political corruption.<\/p>\n

The investigation centres on firms that were allegedly offered deals with Petrobras in exchange for bribes, which were funnelled into politicians’ pockets and party slush funds.<\/p>\n

Lula, a former steel worker turned union leader, came to office as the first left-wing leader in Brazil in nearly half a century.<\/p>\n

He was Brazil’s most popular president during his tenure – former US President Barack Obama labelled him the most popular politician on Earth.<\/p>\n

Unable to stand for a third consecutive term, he was succeeded by close ally Dilma Rousseff,\u00a0who was later impeached.<\/p>\n

Current President Michel Temer also faces corruption allegations and is resisting calls for him to step down.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been convicted of corruption charges and sentenced to nine and a half years in prison. The judge ruled he could remain free pending an appeal. Lula has rejected claims that he received an apartment as a bribe in a corruption scandal linked to state oil company […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[2901,8910],"class_list":["post-335994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","tag-brazil","tag-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=335994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=335994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=335994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=335994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}