Bolsonaro asks Brazilians 'not to give ammunition' to Lula

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro asked his supporters Saturday "not to give ammunition to the scoundrel," the day after popular leftist leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva walked free from jail.

Breaking his silence on the release of his arch-nemesis, Bolsonaro told his Twitter followers: "Lovers of freedom and good, we are a majority. We cannot make mistakes."

He added Lula was "momentarily free, but guilty."

Lula's exit from jail on Friday came a day after a controversial Supreme Court ruling that could release thousands of convicts.

In an impassioned address to hundreds of supporters who greeted him as he left the federal police headquarters in the southern city of Curitiba, Lula vowed to keep fighting for poor people.

He also denounced the economic policies of Bolsonaro, who was swept to power in 2018 in an election Lula had been widely tipped to win.

© 2019 AFP