Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has rebuffed
recent accusations and attacks by the local media and denounced lies
propagated in the social networks and in the Internet reiterating
that he has always had acted strictly within the law “before,
during and after his presidential terms”.
In one of the statements, Lula’s press officers remember that the
former president has been a public figure since the 1980s and has been
investigated for four decades, including being forcefully taken for
questioning, and that all his family has also been investigated but, after all this, nothing has been found to indicate wrong-doing
or illegalities.
Since May 14 the local media has published several stories which
attempted to include Lula in the wrong-doings and on-going
corruption investigations.
→ O May 14th, Lula’s press office rebuffed a story published by
weekly news magazine Veja which accused Lula of trying to obstruct
corruption investigations in the so-called Car Wash scandal. In a
statement written by Lula’s defense, contacts with former Senator
Delcídio do Amaral were formally part of Lula’s activities as an
influential political leader, which still includes contacts with the
members Workers’ Party in Congress. Lula’s lawyers also said that the
accusations made by Veja were supposedly based on documents which
were illegally leaked and were not aligned with information Lula’s
defense has on on-going investigations. The lawyers also said that
phone records of contacts between Lula and José Carlos Bumlai do not
implicate in crime specially because Lula and Bumlai are friends
(read the full statement in Portuguese)
→On May 17th, Lula’s press office rebuffed accusations made by
ex-senator Delcídio do Amaral during a TV interview that Lula had
tried to interfere in investigations. The former senator did not
present any proof of accusations nor did he objectively reply to
questions made during the show. Lula’s press office reiterated the
fact that the former senator is himself being investigated for trying
to obstruct the course of justice and is attempting to ease any
possible court sentencing by collaborating with investigations but
that this collaboration, according to Brazil’s Supreme Court, are not
fully legally-accepted proof, since they need to be corroborated by
further investigation. (read full statement here in Portuguese ).
→ On May 18th Lula’s press office published the complete e-mail
sent to Globo Television, requested by producers of Brazil’s most
popular news programme, Jornal Nacional, but which were not aired.
The statement was partially used by Jornal Nacional as part of a
bigger report on accusations made by Senator Delcídio do Amaral, who
made accusations of wrong doing based on facts that had already been
cleared and explained formally to investigators in early April. (read full statement here in Portuguese )
→ On May 19th Lula’s press office published a statement denying
rumors about Lula allegedly having health problems and having been
admitted to hospital by a site Pensa Brasil. Lula undergoes regular
medical check ups and takes care of his health exercising daily.
Pensa Brasil is a site hosted in the United States with the sole
“purpose of misleading the Brazilian population”, Lula’s press
office said in a statement. (read full statement here in Portuguese )
→ Also on May 19th, Lula’s press office explained how Lula’s
rights were ignored by the produces of the news show Jornal Nacional,
Brazil largest audience televised news aired by Rede Globo. Lula’s
office explained the sequence of events leading to an unbalanced
report which included a complete edition with pictures taken from
older records, open air recordings and specially produced graphics,
indicating that the report was in preparation for several hours
before being aired. Lula’s press office was contacted at 8:09 PM, 20
minutes fore the start of Jornal Nacional and 40 minutes before the
above-mentioned report was aired. The producers gave Lula 26 minutes
to reply, which was dully respected when the press office answered
fully in writing the accusations made through the report. The answers
were ignored by Camila Bomfin, Jornal Nacional’s reporter, who
bureaucratically aired Lula’s defense in a few seconds at the end of
the report. (read full statement here in Portuguese )
→ May 20th, the last in the series of statements, Lula’s press
office published a statement denying rumours that Lula would be
targeted in the most recent operation by Brazil’s Federal Police,
Janus. “Public prosecutors have investigated Lula’s international
trips, who traveled with him, the hotels he stayed at and with whom
he met abroad. And the result simply proved that Lula has always
acted legally, in defense of Brazil, as all former presidents
throughout the world do. This is why Lula is not and could not be
involved this morning’s police operation”.(read full statement here in Portuguese )
