No release from prison for former Brazilian president Lula. The stop came from the president of the Regional Federal Court of Porto Alegre, Carlos Thompson Flores, who agreed with the federal judge Joao Pedro Gebran Neto, who yesterday had blocked the release order issued by Rogerio Favreto, a duty magistrate in the same court.
Lula has been imprisoned since April at the command of the federal police of Curitiba to serve a 12-year sentence for corruption and money laundering.
Sympathizers of the ex president have already called street protests against what they denounce as a judicial persecution against the leader most loved by the people, pre-candidate of the PT for the presidential elections in October.
The anti-Lulas celebrated that a legally dubious maneuver to take advantage of the Sunday shift of a magistrate close to the PT to free a corrupt former president did not work.
In Curitiba, meanwhile, the authorities have deployed anti-riot units, supported by armored vehicles and a helicopter, around the police headquarters where Lula is being held, and there are also reports of concentrations in front of the headquarters of the metallurgical union in San Bernardo dos Campos, on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, where the former president had taken refuge in April, before handing himself over to the authorities.
