This Tuesday, the Brazilian police arrested a retired general and former senior official in the Government of Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022) and four other uniformed officers accused of planning the assassination, at the end of 2022, of the then president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and his vice president, Geraldo Alckmin. In addition to the general, who was number two of the General Secretariat of the Presidency, three lieutenant colonels and a federal police officer have been arrested, according to the Federal Police.
The plot, part of which was intended to prevent Lula’s return to power, also included the arrest and , who at that time presided over the Electoral Court and is a member of the Supreme Court. The revelation by the Federal Police of the assassination plans has coincided with the second day of , which brings together the leaders of the world’s main economies in Rio de Janeiro.
The police have revealed that they have made the five arrests in several Brazilian cities, including Rio, where the authorities maintain a wide deployment of security on the occasion of the G-20 in the streets, very empty because a six-day holiday has been declared. The general who worked in the Presidency printed the plan to kill Lula in the Planalto palace, where the leaders dispatch. Several of the suspects belong to a small group called kids pretos (black kids), made up of soldiers from the Bolsonaro orbit trained in the special forces.
The police investigation indicates that the suspects hatched their plans from a meeting that was held in December 2022, the month before Lula’s inauguration, at the home of retired military man Walter Braga Netto, who was Minister of Defense under Bolsonaro. . Braga Netto is one of the generals accused by the police months ago of plotting a coup d’état. The former far-right president is another of those investigated for the plot and is subject to precautionary measures such as the withdrawal of his passport and the ban on traveling abroad.
The police accusation indicates that those arrested considered the idea of poisoning Lula: “For the execution of President Lula and taking into account his vulnerable health and his frequent visits to hospitals, [sopesaron] the possibility of resorting to poisoning or the use of chemicals to cause organic collapse.” They also prepared an extensive list of weapons to carry out their plans.
After Bolsonaro’s electoral defeat, the hard core of his followers unsuccessfully demanded a military intervention and, in January 2023, when Lula had been back in the presidency for a week, Congress and the Supreme Court. More than 200 people have been convicted and imprisoned for participating in the coup acts, but none of those accused of organizing, instigating or financing them have so far sat in the dock.
Last March, the testimonies of the generals who in 2022 were the head of the Army and the Air Force, questioned as witnesses in the investigation into the assault on the institutional heart in Brasilia, confirmed that Bolsonaro tried to recruit them to stage a coup. They both refused; The head of the Navy embraced the plan and offered his sailors.
The plans to try to assassinate Lula, host of the G-20 these days, are known while Rio hosts the most powerful leaders in the world. Among the leaders present this Tuesday in Rio are Joe Biden, from the United States; Xi Jinping, of China; Narendra Modi, from India; the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen; in addition to the main European leaders and heads of State and Government of the rest of the planet.
to the newsletter of THE COUNTRY America and receive all the key information on current events in the region.
