BRASILIA (Reuters) -Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Thursday tapped Ricardo Lewandowski, a former justice of the country's Supreme Court who ruled to free the leftist leader from jail in 2021, to be Brazil's new justice minister.
Lewandowski, 75, was appointed by Lula to the Supreme Court in 2006 and served in that position until reaching the mandatory retirement age last year. Lula then appointed his personal attorney, Cristiano Zanin, to occupy the vacant seat.
In the Justice Ministry, Lewandowski will replace Flavio Dino, who was appointed by Lula to sit on the country's top court in December. Lewandowski, who is set to take office on Feb. 1, will be under immediate pressure to combat a perception that Lula is failing to combat rising violent crime.
"It's a win for the justice ministry, a win for the Supreme Court and a win for the Brazilian people," Lula said.
Lewandowski presided over the Senate impeachment trial of former President Dilma Rousseff, Lula's hand-picked successor who took over from him after the end of his second term as president. Rousseff was removed from office in 2016 on accusations she violated fiscal laws by using funds from state banks to cover budget shortfalls.
On the top court, Lewandowski took decisions that contributed to the release of Lula from jail after he was convicted in 2019 of taking bribes from engineering firms in the "Car Wash" corruption scandal.
Lula's conviction was annulled by the Supreme Court in 2021 when the majority of the justices, including Lewandowski, upheld a ruling that the lower federal court where Lula was tried lacked jurisdiction in the case. Lula was released after 580 days in jail and went on to defeat former President Jair Bolsonaro in the 2022 election.
Lewandowski will have to disengage from the cases he is defending as a private lawyer before becoming justice minister.
He is expected to name his own team in the Justice Ministry, but stick with Federal Police chief Andrei Rodrigues, who was Lula's head of security during the 2022 campaign.
(Reporting by Ricardo Brito and Anthony Boadle; Writing by Peter Frontini; Editing by Steven Grattan and Paul Simao)
