Sao Bernardo do Campo, Brazil: Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil defied a Friday deadline to report to prison to begin serving a 12-year corruption sentence, daring authorities to haul him away from a union headquarters thronged by his supporters.

As the 5pm deadline neared, da Silva's supporters counted down the last five seconds. Then they began chanting: "There is no surrender!"

Da Silva's decision set the stage for a confrontation between the most loyal defenders of a polarising, yet enormously popular politician, and law enforcement officials who regard his imprisonment as a defining moment in their yearslong effort to stamp out corruption in Brazil.

Brazilians were riveted by the drama on Friday amid uncertainty about when and how da Silva, once a lion of Latin America's left, would be taken into custody.

Some Brazilians relished the imminent arrest of da Silva, seeing it as a measure of justice in a country where powerful politicians have stolen with impunity for years. But others seethed, saying that the 72-year-old former president, who is the front-runner in the presidential election set to take place in October, was about to become a political prisoner.