Brazil shooting: two supporters of jailed ex-president Lula injured
More than 20 shots fired at protest camp in southern city of Curitiba, where Lula is jailed
Two people have been taken to hospital, one in serious condition, following a shooting on an encampment set up to protest against the imprisonment of Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the southern city of Curitiba.
More than 20 shots were fired at the camp at around 4am, according to reports from supporters.
A man identified as Jeferson, 39, was shot in the neck and a woman received arm injuries from shrapnel when a chemical toilet was hit, according to local media. Photos of a bloodsoaked shirt circulated on Brazilian news sites.
“This is the result of this constructed process of persecution against Lula, the Worker’s party and the leftist movements,” the Worker’s party president and senator, Gleisi Hoffmann, said in a video posted on Facebook.
Brazil’s Agência Estado news service reported that police and a forensic team had attended the scene and found shell casings from a 9mm pistol, a weapon only used by police and armed forces. The authorities are investigating.
The supporters’ camp, visited by hundreds of activists including allied politicians, leftwing intellectuals and the Argentinian Nobel peace prize winner, Adolfo Pérez Esquível, was set up when Lula was jailed earlier this month on corruption charges.
The once wildly popular former president says the charges are to keep him from running in Brazil’s October elections for which he leads the polls by a comfortable margin.
One of Lula’s buses with guests and journalists inside was shot at in March while the former president was touring Brazil’s southern states. No one was injured.
Brazil is one of the world’s most violent countries with around 60,000 homicides annually, the vast majority of which go unsolved.
As the country has plunged into political and economic crisis in recent years, it has seen a rise in the number of killings of political, rural and environmental activists and leaders. The recent killing of Marielle Franco, a Rio de Janeiro city councillor, was one of the most shocking and emblematic cases.
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