Monday, August 3rd 2026 - 16:08 UTC
Lula is a “thief and corrupt,” Milei said; he was “convicted and imprisoned, and was released over an administrative flaw rather than for being innocent.”
Argentine President Javier Milei repeated his accusations against Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Sunday, arguing that the corruption convictions once against him were annulled on formal grounds, in remarks that came just as Brazil's ambassador to Buenos Aires was preparing to return after being recalled for consultations.
Lula is a “thief and corrupt,” Milei said; he was “convicted and imprisoned, and was released over an administrative flaw rather than for being innocent.” He spoke in an interview recorded at the presidential palace and broadcast by LN+. Asked whether his tone was aggressive, he replied that calling a thief a thief is milder than the act of theft itself. These are the Argentine president's accusations, not judicial findings.
The legal sequence is more complex than described. Lula was convicted in 2017 and 2019 in the Lava Jato investigation and spent 580 days in detention. He left prison in November 2019 after a Supreme Federal Court ruling holding that no one may be jailed before appeals are exhausted, a decision grounded in the presumption of innocence. In March 2021, Justice Edson Fachin annulled the convictions on the grounds that the Curitiba court lacked jurisdiction, a finding the full court upheld eight votes to three. That June, the court's Second Panel further ruled that Judge Sergio Moro, who had issued the first conviction and later served as Jair Bolsonaro's justice minister, had been biased — a ruling on due process rather than a technicality. In 2023, the court also annulled the evidence gathered by the Lava Jato team.
