Brazilian prosecutors filed corruption charges yesterday against former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, his wife and six others in the sprawling Petrobras kickback scandal.
This was the first time Lula, still Brazil’s most popular politician despite corruption accusations against him and his Workers Party, was charged by federal prosecutors for involvement in the massive graft scheme at the state-run oil company.
Lula’s case will go before crusading anti-corruption judge Sergio Moro, who has jailed dozens of executives and others involved in the scheme.
Lula could face arrest for receiving a luxury apartment on the coast of Sao Paulo from one of the engineering and construction firms at the centre of the bribery scandal.
Lula has denied ownership of the three-floor condo in Guarujá.
Federal police urged prosecutors last month to bring charges against Lula and his wife, accusing them of receiving some 2.4mn reais ($747,896) in benefits from the builder OAS in relation to the apartment.
Lula, a charismatic former union leader who was a two-term president from 2003 to 2010, has separately been indicted by a court in Brasilia for obstruction of justice in a case related to an attempt to persuade a defendant in the Petrobras scandal not to turn state’s witness.
Lula’s fall, and that of the leftist party he founded in 1980, has been dramatic.
Last month, his protégé and successor as president, Dilma Rousseff, was removed from office in an impeachment trial.
Rousseff’s fall was driven by Brazil’s worst recession since the 1930s and its biggest ever corruption scandal, which has implicated dozens of politicians from her ruling coalition, including several in the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party led by current President Michel Temer.