A judge ruled Tuesday that former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva should face trial for corruption and money laundering charges, even though the same judge had dropped all charges against Lula during the investigation into the corruption scheme inside the state-run oil company Petrobras.
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The charges allege that Lula received the equivalent of 3.7 million reais ($1.1 million) in bribes.
Mr. and Mrs. da Silva’s lawyers denied any wrongdoing by the couple, and said the former president is the target of a political prosecution.
Lula da Silva sent out a series of tweets after the charges were filed, calling them “fiction” and claiming he had “been a victim of extremely serious illegalities”, according to the ex-president’s defense.
More broadly, prosecutors last week singled out Lula – who was president during much of the time that Petrobras was being fleeced of billions of dollars – as the scheme’s “supreme commander”.
Silva on Tuesday called the accusation a “farce, a big lie and a great spectacle”.
“What’s happening isn’t getting me down, but just motivates me to go out and talk more”, said Lula.
The decision and the Petrobras probe as a whole make up a watershed moment for the fight against corruption in Brazil, experts say, where for centuries the rich, powerful and politically connected have enjoyed impunity.
The scandal has also taken a heavy toll on Petrobras, Brazil’s biggest company, which has become a symbol of the country’s decline from emerging giant to economic basket case.
Lula’s wife, Marisa Leticia, and six others have also been indicted.
The Petrobras investigation began more than two years ago and has led to the jailing of dozens of businessmen and top politicians.
The once unstoppable party’s 13 years in power ended last month when Lula’s hand-picked successor, Dilma Rousseff, was convicted of budget irregularities in an impeachment trial.
Despite the corruption allegations facing the PT and several of its former coalition parties, the most recent polls have shown Lula remains a leading candidate for 2018.
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Investigators believe overpriced contracts with Petrobras were given in return for bribes.
