RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – “There are no words to describe the significance of me being here with you. All my life I’ve been talking to the Brazilian people, I didn’t think that today I could stand here talking to men and women who have remained here for 580 days”, said Lula to demonstrators who gathered at the headquarters of the Federal Police.
“Every single day, you were the fuel for democracy that I needed to withstand this”.
The order to release the leftist was issued at 4:15 PM by Judge Danilo Pereira Júnior, of the 12th Federal Court of Curitiba, less than 24 hours after the Supreme Court ruling late on Thursday ending the mandatory imprisonment of convicted criminals after they lose their first appeal – Lula’s case.
During his first speech after being released, the ex-president said his arrest was the result of the “rotten side” of the Brazilian state, “of Justice, the Prosecutor’s Office, the Federal Police, and the Federal Treasury,” which, according to him, “worked to try to criminalize the left-wing, the PT and Lula,” the president said.
“The lying side of the Federal Police that investigated me, the scoundrel side of the Prosecutor’s Office and the task force.”
“If you get (Deltan) Dallagnol (head of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office’s task force in Curitiba), (Sérgio) Moro (former Lava Jato judge) and some delegates, stick them into a blender and whip them. Anything left does not amount to ten percent of the honesty that I represent in this country. They have to know that character and dignity is not something we buy in a shopping mall, at a market or at a bar,” the president said.
“Moro needs to know one thing: they didn’t arrest a man. They tried to kill an idea, but an idea doesn’t just vanish,” Lula said, revisiting the ideas in his speech at the ABC Metalworkers’ Union just before he was arrested in April 2018.
The ex-president also criticized media outlets. “I want to fight to prove that if there is a gang and a gang of mobsters, it is these double-dealers led by Rede Globo.”
Lula further stated that “he harbors no resentment” neither from the federal police nor from his jailers.
Source: Estadão Conteúdo