President Javier Milei doubled down on his insults against his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, once again calling him a “thief” and “corrupt,” and defending earlier comments he made during a recent visit to Brazil in support of right-wing presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro.
The Argentina leader also claimed that Lula’s prison sentence for corruption and money laundering was overturned because of an “administrative error” and “not because he is innocent.”
“Isn’t it aggressive when someone robs you? Calling a thief a thief is much less serious than the act of stealing itself,” Milei said during an interview with news channel LN+ on Sunday night.
“They get angry when I say something true about Lula, but ignore the insults from Lula and his ministers, from (Gustavo) Petro, Evo Morales, (Rafael) Correa, Pedro Sánchez. So when I am insulted, it is fine, but when I respond, it is wrong. The worst part is that they accuse me with lies, but I reply with truths.”
“I have terrible manners, but I get results,” he added.
Tension with Brazil
Milei’s earlier remarks about Lula, pronounced in Sao Paulo on July 25 during an event organized by Brazil’s Libertarian Party to announce Flávio Bolsonaro’s presidential candidacy, triggered a diplomatic crisis between Argentina and Brazil.
The comments prompted Brazil’s Foreign Ministry to recall its ambassador to Buenos Aires, Julio Bitelli, for consultations. It remains unclear when he will return.
Flávio Bolsonaro, the far-right son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, is expected to face Lula in Brazil’s October 4 presidential election.
Asked during the interview whether his comments about Lula had gone too far, Milei replied: “Was what I said not true? He is a thief. He is corrupt. He was convicted for being a thief and corrupt. He was in jail, so it is also true that he is a convict.”
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Lula’s conviction
Lula served as Brazil’s president from 2003 to 2011 and returned to office in 2023. His current term is set to end on January 1, 2027.
In 2017, he was sentenced to nine years in prison for passive corruption and money laundering as part of the Lava Jato investigation, Brazil’s largest corruption probe.
Prosecutors accused him of accepting a luxury apartment as a bribe from a construction company in exchange for awarding it state contracts during his presidency.
The sentence was increased to 12 years in 2018, and Lula was arrested in April of that year. He was barred from running in the 2018 presidential election, which was won by Jair Bolsonaro.
Lula remained in prison until November 2019, when Brazil’s judiciary ruled that defendants could not be imprisoned before exhausting their appeals. As a result, he was released while his case remained under review.
In 2021, Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court annulled Lula’s convictions, ruling that the court in Curitiba that handled the case lacked jurisdiction because the alleged crimes should have been tried in Brasília. The decision did not amount to a finding of innocence but rather that the proceedings had been conducted in the wrong court.
The case was transferred to another court. It was later dismissed after judges ruled that key evidence had been obtained unlawfully.
