Lula Should Pay Fine of R$4.9 Million to Migrate to Work-release Regime

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva must pay a fine of R$4.9 (US$1.22) million to the courts, resulting from his conviction in the triplex case, to be able to migrate to the work-release regime – already petitioned the Lava Jato task force.

The figure has been recomputed and resubmitted last Tuesday, October 1st, after the judge decided that there was an error in the application of the Selic rate.

The fine corresponds to the crime of corruption, that is, the alleged purchase of the triplex and its reforms, in the amount of R$2.2 million, in 2009, plus 35 days fine equivalent to five minimum wages. The updated figures, corrected with interest, total R$4.9 million.

The former president’s defense counsel asked that the amount resulting from the judicial sale of the triplex, already auctioned by the courts, be deducted from the total. However, the task force maintains that the property can not be included in this account.

In the decision that convicted Lula to eight years and ten months, the Superior Court of Justice considered that the sale of the triplex does not affect the calculation of the compensation to be paid by the defendant.

The judge of the Court of Criminal Executions, Carolina Lebbos, has already pointed out that she “has summoned those sentenced to pay pecuniary obligations imposed and derived from the criminal conviction, in view of the criminal implications arising from the lack of payment – such as the impossibility of progression within the prison system in relation to crimes against Public Administration.

“The fact that it is a provisional enforcement, therefore, does not rule out the obligation to repair damages for the purposes of regime progression,” says the judge, also following the STJ’s decision on Lula.

In its petition, the task force stresses that the “existence of full guarantee to repair damages and return the proceeds of the illicit act, with the ancillary charges (Art. 33, § 4, of the Penal Code) is sufficient to authorize the transition to a more lenient prison system”.

In a note read by his lawyer on the afternoon of Monday, September 30th, former President Lula said that he does not accept to “bargain” his rights and his freedom and that the Lava Jato prosecutors owe an apology “to the Brazilian people, the millions of unemployed and to my family for the harm they have inflicted on democracy, justice and the country”.

The letter is Lula’s response to the petition by prosecutors, who on Friday, September 27th, asked Judge Carolina Lebbos, in charge of the enforcement of the sentence, for Lula to be transferred to the work-release prison regime.

In the 23 lines of the handwritten note, Lula does not explicitly say that he rejects the progression of the regime. This should be left to the former president’s defense counsel who will officially comment on the Prosecutors’ petition.

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