Lula Acquitted

By Atilio A. Boron on March 8, 2021

In April 2018 when Lula was sentenced to prison by Judge Moro, Vargas Llosa exalted him in his article published in El País of Madrid (and reproduced in hundreds of newspapers in the region) “as an exemplary model for the rest of the planet. The novelist ignored the gross violations of due process that had been denounced by numerous observers. Like the Argentinean troglodytes, he too believes that “lawfare” is a leftist “verse”. But as one of Brazil’s most eminent jurists, Afrânio Silva Jardim, stated before the UN Human Rights Committee in 2016, during Lula’s trial they first “selected the ‘criminal’ and now they are looking for the crime”. They didn’t find the crime, but Moro invented it and Lula was sentenced to another year and a half in prison.

The hegemonic press throughout the region applauded the violation of the rule of law that was underway in Brazil. In Argentina, the flagrant acts of “lawfare” committed by Moro were celebrated with great applause by the right-wing and its political and intellectual representatives, in an accelerated process of fascistisation.

Acts that were reproduced almost ad infinitum by the Federal Justice of this country in a fraternal competition with the corrupt judges and prosecutors of Brazil to see who would trample more ferociously on the most elementary rules of law.

Everything seemed to be going well a few hours ago, Judge Edson Fachin, of Brazil’s Supreme Court, annulled all the convictions for corruption against the former president in the Lava Jato case and ordered the investigation to begin again in other jurisdictions, due to the alleged bias of the prosecution and the former judge and ex-minister Sergio Moro. Moro, as is customary in Argentina, was in the habit of combining with the prosecutor on duty the form and direction that the criminal investigation should take in order to ensure Lula’s conviction. Now, the much-admired Moro will most likely end up in jail himself. The winds that repaired an injustice in Brazil will arrive sooner than expected in these lands. Brazil breathes, Argentina too.

Source: Atilio Boron blog, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English