The human rights committee of the UN said Thursday that corruption investigators from Brazil violated due process in the case against the former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva which led to his imprisonment and prevented him from running for president in 2018.
The ruling is known after last year the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil overturned his conviction for corruption, allowing him run for the presidential election in october.
Opinion polls show the leftist former union leader currently leading the race, ahead of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.
“These procedural violations made Lula’s ban on running for president (in 2018) arbitrary and thus violated his political rights, including his right to stand for election,” according to a statement on behalf of the committee. of independent experts.
Lula, who was president from 2003 to 2010, filed a complaint with the committee in 2016 about how he was put on trial in the largest corruption investigation in Brazilian history, called “Car Wash Operation“.
The UN committee, which oversees countries’ adherence to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rightshad asked Brazil to allow Lula to run for president in 2018.
The committee’s 18-expert panel found that the wiretapping during the investigation and its disclosure to the media violated their right to privacy, while actions by the judge and prosecutors violated their right to be presumed innocent.
The commission urged Brazil to “ensure that any other criminal proceedings against Lula comply with the guarantees of due process and to prevent similar violations in the future.”
During his tenure, Lula oversaw a period of strong economic growth – fueled by a commodity boom – that helped lift millions out of poverty. However, his Workers’ Party was later consumed by the sprawling “Car Wash” investigation, which convicted several of his allies of an unprecedented corruption scheme.
Lula’s lawyer, christian zaninsaid the UN committee’s decision supports arguments that the convictions handed down by the former judge sergio morowho oversaw much of the research for “Car washThey were politically motivated.
Moro, who was Bolsonaro’s justice minister until April 2020, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Everything they did to Lula was illegal and arbitrary,” Zanin told reporters in Sao Paulo.
He noted that the commission gave the Brazilian government 180 days to say how it will remedy the violation of Lula’s rights and make its conclusions widely known by Brazilians.
