Brazil’s former national president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (widely known as Lula) has petitioned the United Nations alleging his human rights have been violated in the corruption probe into the Petrobras graft scandal.
Lula was president and leader of the Workers Party for much of the period during which large-scale bribery was rife at Brazil’s state oil firm Petrobras.
Executives of the oil firm were paid inducements by contractors in return for over-priced contracts. And politicians received kickbacks to look the other way.
The investigation has already nailed numerous high-level businessmen and politicians.
Lula is accused of hampering the Operation Car Wash probe into the scandal.
His lawyers’ case to the UN in Geneva claims that the investigating federal judge Sergio Moro was abusing his power and leading a witch hunt.
They claim his rights to privacy, freedom from arbitrary arrest and his right to be presumed innocent have all been violated.
Lula’s successor as national president Dilma Rousseff is currently suspended from the post pending an impeachment hearing on unrelated charges to do with manipulating public accounts for political ends.
