Brazil\u2019s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva defied a judge\u2019s order to turn himself in to police\u00a0on Friday\u00a0and start serving a 12-year prison sentence for bribery that would likely end his hopes of regaining the presidency.<\/p>\n
Lula remained holed up inside the headquarters of a steelworkers union in metropolitan Sao Paulo, surrounded by hundreds of fervent supporters, creating a standoff expected to stretch into the weekend.<\/p>\n
Talks between Lula\u2019s aides and federal police to arrange his surrender were ongoing\u00a0on Fridayevening, according to two people familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n
One of the sources, who requested anonymity, said he would not be taken into custody beforeSaturday.<\/p>\n
Workers Party leader Gleisi Hoffmann said Lula would take part in a\u00a0Saturday\u00a0morning mass at the union headquarters to commemorate the birthday of his late wife Marisa.<\/p>\n
Hoffmann denied reports that he was negotiating his surrender.<\/p>\n
Federal police in Sao Paulo declined to say if they would attempt to forcibly take the former president into custody, a move that could trigger intense clashes with his supporters.<\/p>\n
Lula\u2019s legal team filed a late\u00a0Friday\u00a0petition with the Supreme Court to quash the prison order, after losing a last-minute plea to an appeals court.<\/p>\n
The lawyers argued they had not exhausted procedural appeals and painted the case as an effort to remove Lula from the presidential race he is leading.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of supporters, including workers, students and land rights activists, filled the street outside the union headquarters, cheering defiant speeches calling the case a political witch hunt.<\/p>\n
A banner hung from the building showed Lula\u2019s smiling face on an electronic voting machine.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are here to show that the workers will resist this attack against democracy,\u201d said union leader Jorge Nazareno.<\/p>\n
Lula himself had not addressed the crowd nearly 24 hours after arriving at the building, but briefly appeared at a window to wave.<\/p>\n
The same steelworkers union in Sao Paulo\u2019s industrial suburbs where 72-year-old Lula sought refuge served as the launch pad for his political career nearly four decades ago, when he led nationwide strikes that helped to end Brazil\u2019s 1964-85 military government.<\/p>\n
Lula\u2019s everyman style and unvarnished speeches electrified masses long governed by the elite and eventually won him two terms as president, from 2003 to 2011, when he oversaw robust economic growth and falling inequality amid a commodities boom.<\/p>\n
He left office with sky-high approval of 83 percent and was called \u2018the most popular politician on Earth\u2019 by former U S President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n
Lula\u2019s downfall has been as stunning as the unprecedented corruption probes that have convulsed Brazil for the last four years, jailing dozens of politicians and business leaders long considered above the law.<\/p>\n
Federal Judge Sergio Moro, who has handled the bulk of cases in Brazil\u2019s biggest-ever graft investigation and issued Lula\u2019s prison order, wrote that he should not be handcuffed and would have a special cell in Curitiba, where he stood trial.<\/p>\n
Lula was convicted last year for taking bribes from an engineering firm in return for help landing contracts with state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA.<\/p>\n
Brazil\u2019s Supreme Court\u00a0on Thursday\u00a0rejected Lula\u2019s plea to remain free until he exhausts all his appeals, clearing the way for his imprisonment.<\/p>\n
The ruling likely ends his political career and blows October\u2019s election wide open, leaving Brazil\u2019s left without an obvious candidate to regain power following the unpopular current president, Michel Temer.\/Reuters<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Brazil\u2019s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva defied a judge\u2019s order to turn himself in to police\u00a0on Friday\u00a0and start serving a 12-year prison sentence for bribery that would likely end his hopes of regaining the presidency. Lula remained holed up inside the headquarters of a steelworkers union in metropolitan Sao Paulo, surrounded by hundreds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3291"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3291"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3294,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3291\/revisions\/3294"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}