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BRAZIL’S former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva slammed yesterday the two-year corruption probe against him — saying it had found “nothing.”
Workers’ Party (PT) founder Mr da Silva spoke to a rally of supporters in the south-eastern city of Curitiba on Wednesday night after testifying there for five hours before Judge Sergio Moro, leading investigations into massive corruption allegations.
Mr da Silva, president from 2003 to 2010, answered allegations he received a seaside flat as payment in kind from construction company OAS.
“After being massacred for two years,” by the media and judiciary, “I was expecting to see a document showing that I bought the apartment,” the leftwinger said.
“But there was nothing, nothing at all.
“If there’s a human being in search of the truth, it’s me,” he said. “If I have committed any error I want the Brazilian people to judge me.”
Mr da Silva said the legal proceedings against him — which he maintains are politically motivated — only made him more determined than ever to run for the presidency again next year.
“I have the urge to do things right and prove that the Brazilian elite is unable to sort this country out,” he said.
Mr da Silva’s successor Dilma Rousseff was impeached last August in what the PT called a “legislative coup.”
Turncoat vice-president Michel Temer’s interim government has made drastic austerity cuts but has been ensnared in the “Operation Car wash” around construction firm Odebrecht and state oil company Petrobras.
