Joe Leahy – Financial Times, 09/27/2012
In the magical realist world of the Rio de Janeiro carnival, the last character one might expect to see portrayed in the festivities would be from the arcane sphere of Brazil’s supreme court.
But craftsmen in the city have begun churning out masks ahead of next February’s carnival in the likeness of Joaquim Barbosa. This is in homage to the important role that the court’s only black judge is playing in the country’s biggest corruption case.
Justice Barbosa is in charge of the so-called mensalão trial of alleged vote-buying in congress, whose suspects include senior members of the government of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
