The bomb attack against the Federal Supreme Court (STF) should boost the Federal Police’s investigation against Jair Bolsonaro (PL) for an alleged coup attempt and the pressure, later, on the Attorney General’s Office to denounce the former president. This Thursday (14), the day after the explosions in front of the Court’s headquarters building, several ministers associated the attack with the history of provocations and gestures of belligerence carried out by Bolsonaro and his political group towards the court and its members, which escalated after the act of January 8, 2023.
In statements at the beginning of the trial session, the president of the STF, Luís Roberto Barroso; the dean, Gilmar Mendes; and minister Alexandre de Moraes, who will lead the investigation into the case, were unanimous in their speech that the explosions, treated as an act of terrorism, are the result of aggressive speech directed at the STF not only by Bolsonaro in recent years, but also by politicians allies – the two highlighted, in this sense, the 2021 video of former deputy Daniel Silveira with threats, the recurring demonstrations against the Court since the beginning of the Bolsonaro government and the roadblocks and camps in the barracks after the election of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2022.
Barroso, Mendes and Moraes also criticized the attempt to amnesty the protesters who invaded and vandalized the headquarters of the STF, Palácio do Planalto and Congress at the beginning of last year. In addition to trying to promote the advancement of this proposal in Congress, Bolsonaro seeks its inclusion to free himself from the investigation into the coup attempt and other suspicions from the Moraes investigations – alleged appropriation of gifts and falsification of vaccination cards -, in addition to the condemnation of ineligibility declared by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE).
“They want to forgive without even condemning,” said Barroso in a speech in the plenary, in reference to the amnesty proposal. Afterwards, questioned by People’s Gazette During a press interview, he defended the conclusion of the investigation into the intellectual mentors of January 8, in which Bolsonaro is being investigated.
“I don’t know until the end of the investigation who will be charged. I have no pre-formed opinion or prejudgment towards anyone. But I think it is now a good time for us to be able to conclude this investigation”, he stated. Barroso reported that he recently spoke with Moraes and the general director of the PF, Andrei Rodrigues, about the investigation.
“I think we are already close to the end for this material to be handed over to the Attorney General of the Republic, who will then verify who there is evidence and who there is no evidence. See: you don’t punish for political divergence, you punish if there is a crime. Therefore, if a crime is found, we have to investigate,” he said.
Moraes and Mendes directly refuted statements by Bolsonaro and his allies that the explosions were an “isolated fact”. “It is a context that began way back when the famous “hate office” began to spout hate speech against institutions, against the STF mainly, against the autonomy of the Judiciary and against each person’s ministers and families”, said Moraes in the morning, during a Public Ministry event.
“Although extremism and intolerance reached paroxysm on January 8, 2023, the creeping ideology that inspired the attempted coup d’état did not emerge suddenly. On the contrary, hate speech, political fanaticism and the disinformation industry were largely encouraged by the previous government”, said Gilmar Mendes in the plenary.
At the STF session, the attorney general, Paulo Gonet, was the most economical in his words. “The Attorney General’s Office offers its sincere solidarity to the Federal Supreme Court for the regrettable episode of last night. It is clear that disrespect for institutions continues to have sinister consequences, demonstrating the effort that has been made by the PGR and the STF in determining responsibilities and punishment for violent acts with an anti-democratic purpose”, he said.
Conclusion of the January 8 investigation has been postponed since August
The conclusion of the investigation into the supporters of January 8th and the alleged coup attempt has been postponed since August by the PF. Since then, the investigation has obtained more evidence and collected new statements from those investigated and witnesses. The expectation now is that it will be delivered to the STF by next week. Only then will the material be forwarded to Gonet so that he can frame the conduct investigated and report the crimes. After that, the STF will meet to analyze the accusations and open a criminal case, in which those reported will become defendants.
Gonet came to command the PGR at the end of last year, with strong support from Moraes and Gilmar Mendes. Since then, they have acted in greater harmony with Moraes, in the investigations into fake news and digital militias, than their predecessor, Augusto Aras, appointed by Bolsonaro.
The PF’s request addressed to the STF to investigate the attack, in fact, was included in the investigation opened in 2021 to investigate the acts against the Court that occurred on September 7, 2021. At the time, several trucks entered the Esplanada dos Ministérios. The then president of the Court, Luiz Fux, mobilized with the security forces to prevent vehicles from descending the Praça dos Três Poderes ramp to demolish the STF headquarters building.
Director General of the PF cites connection between the explosions and January 8
This Thursday morning, in a press interview, the general director of the PF, Andrei Rodrigues, spoke several times about the “seriousness” of the attack. He highlighted the connection with January 8th by mentioning a message written by the author, Francisco Wanderley Luiz, with reference to the graffiti on the statue of Justice, in front of the STF, which occurred during the invasion. He stated that the intention of the explosions was to kill Court ministers – the PF investigation found that the main target was Moraes.
“It shows this link between these radical groups that culminated in this barbarism that happened yesterday in the attempt to kill ministers of the Supreme Court and which also culminated in this regrettable episode of this person’s suicide”, said the general director of the PF.
During the session, Moraes and Barroso also said that Francisco Luiz’s objective was to set off an explosion inside the STF, which was full of visitors at the time, around 7:30 pm. The trial session – on restrictions on police operations in favelas in Rio – had ended shortly before. When the explosions occurred, only Barroso, Edson Fachin and Cristiano Zanin were in the headquarters building – the three were removed from the snack room, behind the plenary, by security guards. Moraes was already in his office, in a more protected annex.
The PF investigation into the case works on two criminal hypotheses: terrorism, whose sentence varies from 12 to 30 years in prison; or violent abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law, with a sentence ranging from 8 to 12 years. If the evidence confirms the political motivation of the acts carried out by Francisco Luiz, the tendency is for the case to be classified as a crime against democracy – the crime of terrorism, in Brazil, does not include political motivations.
With Moraes as rapporteur, maximum rigor is expected in the investigation, which will now seek, mainly with the expertise of Francisco Luiz’s cell phone, to uncover his network of contacts. The PF wants to know whether there were other people directly behind the attack – who may have incited, stimulated, financed or contributed to the attack – or whether he acted solely under the influence of others who cursed and threatened the ministers.
So far, according to investigators familiar with the investigation, no evidence of direct links with others investigated by January 8th has been found. There is also no evidence that Francisco Luiz participated in the act, although he was in Brasília at the time.
In less than 24 hours after the attack, emails from the STF received at least 8 messages praising the perpetrator of the explosions. One of the emails contained the following message:
“We clarify that Francisco Luiz, now in heaven together with the Father, was just one of the countless martyrs of our fight against you, the satanic scum of the STF. We will not rest until we eliminate Satan’s scum”, said the text, sent by an anonymous author. In the email, there was a photo with religious books and a pistol.
Since January 8, the STF has recorded around a thousand threats, in emails, calls and letters with violent messages sent to the court. With the explosions, the security of the STF will be reinforced with the return of the bars around the headquarters building, which had been removed in February this year, and with greater rigor in controlling the entry of visitors using X-rays.
