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Lula's Defense Requests his Release as Supreme Court Decision

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The Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva defense formalized a request for the Brazilian former president's release permit, filed by a Supreme Federal Court (STF) judge, to be complied with, Fato''s Brazil portal reported Thursday.
 
Such request was made after the head of the STF, Antonio Dias Toffoli, suspended the preliminary decision of Minister Marco Aurelio Mello to release all inmates after the second instance conviction, a measure which benefited the former worker leader.
 
For Lula's defense lawyers, 'there is no place for Dias Toffoli's kind of appeal' to overturn Aurelio Mello's ruling, something the magistrate argued.
 
This judge on Wednesday issued a ruling suspending the application of a 2016 law, which allows those convicted of corruption to be released after their sentence is confirmed after a first appeal.
 
Although it is widely reported in the press that Toffoli Days had disallowed such a measure, it should be 'underlined that the extensive jurisprudence of this Supreme Court reveals that the request for the suspension of decisions dictated by the other STF ministers is manifestly unreasonable,' states the former ruler's legal team in its claim.
 
Dias Toffoli also wrote in his ruling that the highest court's 11 judges would have to make a determination and the case will be reviewed on April 10.
 
Lula remains in prison since April after being sentenced to more than 12 years and a month in prison for alleged acts of corruption.
 
He has reiterated his innocence in more than one occasion and describes all the accusations as a farce.
 
The Workers Party (PT), of which he is the founder, and his lawyers consider Lula to be a political prisoner facing fierce judicial persecution. / PL