SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Friday it made “no sense” for the U.S. Department of Justice to request information from Saab over Brazil’s purchase of the Swedish firm’s Gripen fighter jets in 2014.
Saab revealed the U.S. request on Thursday and said it intended to comply with it, without providing further details.
“I think this is the U.S. meddling in another country’s affairs,” Lula told a radio interview. The leftist leader is in his third non-consecutive term, having previously served as president between 2003 and 2010.
The deal with Saab – which beat Boeing and France’s Dassault to secure the contract – was inked by the administration of Lula’s handpicked successor, former President Dilma Rousseff.
Brazilian prosecutors in 2016 formally accused Lula of using his influence to help Saab win the tender for the 36 fighter jets worth $5.4 billion, a case the president’s lawyers said at the time amounted to “political persecution”.
The case was tossed out by Brazil’s Supreme Court in 2022, when it ruled prosecutors had been biased against Lula while noting the purchase followed the constitution and was not challenged by bodies overseeing the deal.
(Reporting by Gabriel Araujo and Lisandra Paraguassu; Editing by Toby Chopra)
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