BRAZIL'S EX-PRESIDENT BEGINS PRISON TERM

CURITIBA : Brazil's leftist icon Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva served the first day of a 12-year prison sentence for corruption on Sunday, but was already -

Hoping for a way out through the courts this week in a drama gripping the country ahead of presidential elections.

The 72-year old, who served two terms as head of state between 2003 and 2010, entered the prison in the southern city of Curitiba late on Saturday, becoming Brazil's first ex-president to be jailed as a criminal.

His cell is located in the federal police building that serves as the base of operation ''Car Wash'' , Brazil's wide ranging anti-graft investigation that brought him down.

Although Brazil's recent presidents have often ended up in trouble - impeached, felled by a coup and even one suicide - Lula is the first to have been convicted and locked up.

Lulu was found guilty last year of accepting a luxury apartment as a bribe from a construction company and is the biggest scalp so far of the Car Wash Probe.

He insists on his innocence and says he was framed to stop him from running in October presidential elections in which polls show him as the frontrunner.