Justice Minister Sergio Moro (centre) was the anticorruption judge who handed Lula his first conviction in 2017, which prevented him from running in a presidential election he was widely expected to win. —AFP Photo

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil's Justice Minister and prosecutors collaborated to convict left-wing icon Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on corruption charges to prevent him from contesting the 2018 election, an investigative news outlet reported on Sunday.

Citing leaked documents, The Intercept website co-founded by Glenn Greenwald said an anonymous source had provided material, including private chats, audio recordings, videos and photos, that show "serious wrongdoing, unethical behavior, and systematic deceit."

Among the explosive claims, The Intercept said prosecutors in a massive, years long anti-corruption probe known as "Car Wash" had expressed "serious doubts whether there was sufficient evidence to establish (former president) Lula's guilt".

Justice Minister Sergio Moro was the anticorruption judge who handed Lula his first conviction in 2017, which prevented him from running in a presidential election he was widely expected to win.

Bolsonaro, who said during his campaign that he hoped Lula would "rot in prison," later made Moro part of his cabinet.

Greenwald, who was part of the team that first interviewed Edward Snowden in 2013, said on Twitter the leak was "one of the largest & most important in years".

This is "just the very beginning of what we intend to reveal from this massive archive about him (Moro) & the prosecutors with whom he unethically worked," Greenwald tweeted.

The documents could not be verified by AFP.

The claims come at a bad time for Bolsonaro who is already facing mounting opposition less than six months into his term, as Latin America's biggest economy teeters on the edge of recession and his signature pension reform remains stuck in a hostile Congress.

In response to The Intercept reports, Moro defended his actions as judge in the ongoing Car Wash probe and said the material obtained through the "criminal invasion of prosecutors' cell phones" had been "taken out of context and sensationalised."

The Car Wash task force confirmed its investigators had been hacked, but said it did not know the extent of the breach.

Politically motivated

Lula, who led Brazil through a historic boom from 2003 to 2010, has denied all the corruption charges against him, arguing they were politically motivated to prevent him from competing in the elections.

He is serving a reduced jail term of eight years and 10 months after being convicted of accepting a seaside apartment as a bribe for helping the OAS construction company get lucrative deals with state oil firm Petrobras.

While behind bars, Lula's Workers' Party (PT) registered him as their presidential candidate in August 2018 -- two months before the election. An electoral court barred him two weeks later.

A second conviction was handed down in February for which he was sentenced to almost 13 years.

"The truth will prevail" was posted on Lula's Twitter account above a link to The Intercept stories.

The leaked material shows "Car Wash prosecutors spoke openly of their desire to prevent the PT from winning the election and took steps to carry out that agenda," The Intercept said.

"Moro secretly and unethically collaborated with the Car Wash prosecutors to help design the case against Lula despite serious internal doubts about the evidence supporting the accusations, only for him to then pretend to be its neutral adjudicator." —AFP