Brazil’s Lula May Start Serving Sentence in Partial Liberty

By Xiu Ying, Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Federal Prosecutor General (PGR) expressed the opinion that former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva could serve his remaining sentence under a partial-liberty regime, thus leaving confinement in the federal penitentiary in Curitiba.

The opinion was expressed in a dispatch issued by the Public Prosecutor (MPF) on May 21st, cited in an opinion issued by the Assistant Federal Prosecutor General, Aurea Pierre, on May 29th, and forwarded to the Superior Federal Court (STJ). Lula has been imprisoned since April 7th, 2018.

On April 23rd, the STJ affirmed lower court convictions for corruption and money laundering, but reduced the sentence sentence imposed by the federal appeals court in the Guarujá (SP) triplex case, from 12 years and one month to eight years, ten months, and 20 days imprisonment.

Lula’s defense then requested that the former president be transferred to an partial liberty regime, given the time served and the reduction of the sentence.

“As observed by the MPF, in its appeal against suspension dated May 21st, 2019, the court omitted to rule on the penalty enforcement regime, following the penalty reduction at the STJ,” wrote Assistant Federal Prosecutor General, Aurea Lustosa Pierre, in her May 29th opinion.