Court Tracks Profile Owners Who Celebrated Death of Lula’s 7-year-old Grandson

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A São Paulo court has identified the creators of texts on the Internet that celebrated the death of Arthur, the grandson of ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who died in March last year at age seven.

Alessandra Strutzel, who called herself a blogger and wrote “at least one piece of good news,” while sharing a report on the boy’s death, was a fake Facebook profile.

Its administrator, according to documents attached to a case that is being processed in the 7th Civil Court of São Bernardo, is a resident of Campo Grande (RJ). “If not even he [Lula] is sad, because I would be,” L.A.S. said at the time.

After the announcement that the ex-president would sue Alessandra, the fake blogger even started an internet fundraising campaign claiming she needed funds to defend herself. “My beloved ones, I need help in any amount to help me with the lawsuit the ex-president brought against me because of an isolated comment,” she said. “I’m desperate, I have a bedridden mother, I regret it.”

Lula is demanding R$50,300 in compensation.

A second attack at the time of the boy’s death was made by Hudson Du Mato, nicknamed H.L.C.M. “God’s justice does not fail,” wrote the Internet user from Belo Horizonte. “Lula is just beginning to pay for all the lives he’s taken along public health money.”

The ex-president asks for compensation of one minimum wage (R$1,045) and that the person responsible be forced to publish any potential conviction on his social media. “It’s undeniable that such a delicate moment for a person should be at least respected,” Eugênio Aragão, the ex-president’s attorney, said in a document addressed to the courts.

A UOL columnist sought H.L.C.M. but received no response. He has not yet appeared in the action.

The third attack was made by a person who claimed to be Fernanda de Carvalho da Silva Carvalho da Silva, with the repetition of the last name. In a post in which she called Lula a “scoundrel,” she said that the ex-president, at the time imprisoned in Curitiba, would make a “show-campaign” at his grandson’s memorial service. “There will be ‘Free Lula’ at the wake,” she wrote. The fake profile was associated with a phone bill registered under Wellington Melo Castro’s CPF (Individual Tax Register).

Sued by Lula, Wellington claims he was not the text’s creator. He told the Court that his CPF had been fraudulently used to register the telephone line.

Judge Maurício Tino Garcia rejected the argument, stating that in addition to the CPF, the telephone number is linked to Wellington’s correct address and that, therefore, the telephone number belongs to him.

However, compensation was not granted by the judge. He considered that the comment made by the internet user is political criticism, although of questionable standard, but that there was no offense to the boy. Referring to Lula, he said that “enduring acid criticism is part of the burden of an idiomatic political figure.”

Lula has appealed the decision.

Source: UOL