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| - Brazil's Supreme Court held deliberations Thursday on a ruling that annulled former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's corruption convictions, a case that could have a major impact on the country's 2022 presidential elections. The court's 11 judges are set to rule on prosecutors' appeal of Justice Edson Fachin's March 8 decision quashing Lula's graft convictions, a politically explosive ruling that -- if it stands -- clears the way for the popular leftist to run in next year's elections against far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. If they overturn it, Lula, 75, will again lose his eligibility to stand in the race, in which some polls put him in the lead. Lula, the popular but tarnished leftist who led Brazil through an economic boom from 2003 to 2010, was jailed in 2018 on charges of taking bribes from companies seeking juicy contracts at state oil giant Petrobras. The cases felled him just as he was gearing up to seek a new presidential term, in the elections Bolsonaro ultimately won. Lula maintains he is innocent and that the case against him was a conspiracy to sideline him politically. The charges grew out of "Operation Car Wash," an investigation that blew the lid off a massive corruption scheme in which top politicians and business executives systematically siphoned billions of dollars from Petrobras. Fachin ruled the court in the southern state of Parana that handled the Car Wash cases did not have jurisdiction for Lula's charges because they were not directly related to the Petrobras scheme. He ordered the four cases -- two convictions and two pending judgments -- transferred to another court in Brasilia. Prosecutors have asked the Supreme Court to at a minimum reinstate the two convictions, arguing they were legally sound and that Lula was "named as the ringleader" of the Petrobras scheme -- an accusation they have struggled to pin on him in court. Lula spent 18 months in jail before being freed in 2019 pending appeal. The full Supreme Court is also set to rule on prosecutors' appeal of a decision that found the lead Car Wash judge, Sergio Moro, was biased in convicting Lula. bur-jhb/to
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