By Felipe Rabioglio
A federal court has ordered that about R$2.42 million (about $439,000) from the auction of the Guarujá triplex apartment that was used as justification to imprison Lula da Silva in 2018, be paid to OAS Empreendimentos, the company that has been registered as the property’s owner since construction of the building finished in 2014. The court said the annulment of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s convictions and the end of the criminal case removed the legal basis for keeping the money frozen.
Screenshot of live broadcast from COP 31 on Nov. 12, 2026. L-R: BNDES President Aloiso Mercodante, Congressman Andre Janones, and President Lula da Silva
Lula responded Thursday during a livestream from COP31 in Turkey, demanding a retraction from the Brazilian press over its coverage of the case. He appeared alongside Rep. André Janones, a Rede party member from Minas Gerais, and Aloizio Mercadante, president of the National Bank for Economic and Social Development, known as BNDES.
“I spent 580 days in jail saying the apartment was not mine,” Lula said. “Now that the courts have decided the apartment was never mine, I only hope that the people who accused me, and the people who said for years that the apartment was mine, will apologize.”
“I hope they won’t put it in a footnote in the bottom of a newspaper story,” he said. “I hope they apologize in giant letters, the same size as headlines used to accuse me.”
Among the many controversies in the Lava Jato investigation, which was illegally forum shopped to a sympathetic, out-of-state judge who went on to be Jair Bolsonaro’s Justice Minister, was the fact that prosecutors were never able to provide any evidence that Lula had ever owned or resided in the apartment.
This text first appeared as part of a larger article on President Lula’s activities at COP 31 today, in ICL Notícias. It was translated with express authorization from the editor, by Panamerican Dispatch, and can be read in its original Portuguese here.