Brazilian federal police raided the summer residence of former President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday morning, accused of leading a coup attempt to stay in power after losing power. 2022 elections.
«I left the Government more than a year ago and I continue to suffer incessant research«Bolsonaro said Folha de Sao Paulo.
The Federal Police showed up at the summer residence in Angra dos Reis, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, and seized the man’s cell phone. Third Arnaud Thomazone of the advisors of the conservative Bolsonaro, who was in the residence with the former president.
Security forces asked Bolsonaro to hand over his passportbut the former president said he did not have it with him and was given a 24-hour period to comply with the order.
Bolsonaro, 68 years old and president from 2019 to 2023, is prohibited from communicating with other people who are also subject to the measure Operation Tempus Veritatiswhich investigates the coup attempt in 2022. The goal was to keep Bolsonaro in power despite the defeat against Luiz Incio Lula da Silva in the second round of the presidential elections.
The investigation is based mainly on the colonel’s revelations Mauro Cid, who was Bolsonaro’s assistant during his presidency. Cid indicated two names, that of the former councillor Philip Martins and the admiral Almir Garnier dos Santos.
The colonel’s revelations dismantle the version according to which these were nothing more than delusional dreams of some ultra-conservatives. According to the CID, Martins brought the president the draft of a decree to keep Bolsonaro in power, call new elections and arrest opponents.
Aware of the operation against his predecessor, Lula celebrated the fact during a radio interview: «The concrete fact is that there was an attempted coup d’état. There was an attempt to destroy something that we built many years ago, which is the democratic process. These people must be investigated.»
A week after taking power, Lula suffered the invasion of the Plaza de los Tres Poderes, on January 8, 2023, which is in the black history of Brazil.
This week, Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court (STF) sentenced 29 people to prison for the coup attack.
The convictions are added to others known in September which affected 30 people. After virtually agreeing on the defendants’ sentences, STF magistrates still have to establish the extent of the sentences, which range from 11 to 17 years.
In 2023, the STF sentenced another 30 people to sentences ranging from three to 17 years in prison. The charges concern five crimes: violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, coup d’état, armed criminal conspiracy, aggravated damage and damage to protected property.
The 59 people already passed through the STF belong to the so-called «executors» category, people who were arrested at the same time as they invaded and destroyed the structures of the Planalto Palace, the Congress and the STF itself.
The political plot behind the three-power invasion, inspired by what the US Capitol suffered on January 6, 2021, is convoluted and there are still no condemnations of the ideologues, nor the financiers of the coup cabal.
De Moraes had explained to «O Globo» in January how the amazing 8 January had been reached. The judge recalled the tens of thousands of people camped outside military barracks across Brazil and shouting «Armed forces, save the nation!»
«It was a big mistake on the part of the authorities to allow those people to remain in front of the barracks (in Brasilia) during the last year. The big mistake was to allow the coup plotters to enter the Esplanade of the Ministries. On January 8th it was the culmination of the movement: the last attempt to annul the legitimate result of the polls.»
De Moraes delves into the details of the plan to be drawn up if January 8 is successful. «They said they should come to Brasilia. Several financiers were ordered to come, invade Congress and stay (…). They would try to convince the Army to join the coup. It’s not like the Army would have joined «Because the institution never flirted with the idea, even though some of its members were involved and all are under investigation.»
That January 8, De Moraes was in Paris with his family, but the most enthusiastic people in Brasilia wanted to hang him right in the Plaza de los Tres Poderes.
“What did they want?” asked Miriam Leitao, one of the country’s most influential columnists, last month. “They wanted to cause a domino effect, where similar acts would occur in other states.”
The dismissal of the governor of the Federal District of Brasilia, Ibaneis Rocha, who did not lift a finger for the Military Police of Brasilia to stop the demonstrators, was essential to prevent other governors from being tempted to join the rebellion.
At the end of that turbulent 2023, President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva accomplished something controversial. that his personal lawyer and his Minister of Justice became members of the STF.
The investigation which established today that Bolsonaro’s passport had been taken away highlights several facts, Bolsonaro’s continued allusions that the electronic voting system promoted fraud, as the basis for his attempt to stay in power beyond the results of the elections. However, that attack and what happened on January 8 in Brasilia are clearly connected.
