Brazil’s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva turned himself in to police on Saturday, leaving the steel workers union offices where he had sought refuge while defying a court deadline to submit to custody.
Lula was surrounded by hundreds of die-hard supporters, including leaders of his Workers Party, union workers and activists, in the industrial suburb of Sao Paulo where his political career began as a union official. He will be taken by police to a jail cell in the southern city of Curitiba, where he will begin serving his 12-year sentence.