This Tuesday (19), four Army soldiers were arrested on suspicion of participating in a plan to kill, in 2022, the newly elected president () and his vice, Geraldo Alckmin (PSB).
The officers are all members of the Army’s Special Forces, considered the Force’s elite troops. The soldiers trained in this area are, in reference to the color of the group’s symbols, such as the cap and emblem.
Among the targets of the operation, called Countercoup, are retired general Mário Fernandes and lieutenant colonels Hélio Ferreira Lima, Rafael Martins de Oliveira and Rodrigo Bezerra de Azevedo.
In addition to Lula and Alckmin, another target of this group of military personnel would be the minister of the STF (Supreme Federal Court), who would be arrested and subsequently killed, according to the investigations.
According to PF investigators, the group was commanded by retired general Mário Fernandes, who was executive secretary of the General Secretariat of the Presidency in the government of (). He was also an advisor in the deputy’s office (PL-RJ) until March of this year.
Mário has already been the target of searches in the Tempus Veritatis operation, launched by the PF in February, which also investigates an alleged coup d’état plan to prevent Lula (PT) from taking office. At the time, he remained silent in his testimony and claimed not to have had access to the records.
The reserve general would have sent messages to the then Army commander, General Freire Gomes, asking for adherence to the coup plan — the request would have been rejected by the head of the barracks.
Furthermore, Mário was one of the participants in the Bolsonaro government’s ministerial meeting in July 2022. In his speech, with a military government.
“There is no such thing as the verb we need. There will be. […] We have to have a deadline for this [mudanças no sistema eleitoral] happen on the part of the Judiciary, the TSE, and a forecast of a next meeting for alternatives if this does not happen within that period”, he stated.
In testimony, Mauro Cid told investigators that the general was one of the most radical among those involved in the plans to prevent Lula’s inauguration.
Also the target of this Tuesday’s operation, Lieutenant Colonel Hélio Ferreira Lima commanded the third company of Special Forces in Manaus, but was removed by order of the STF in February after also being targeted by Tempus Veritatis.
In messages found by the PF in the operation, he allegedly sent Cid a document in English that claimed to have identified vulnerabilities in electronic voting machines in the first round of the 2022 elections.
The text, according to Moraes’ decision, insinuated the existence of “two source codes” in electronic voting machines — a lie that was spread by Bolsonarist groups despite the Armed Forces having participated in the sealing of electronic voting machines, without pointing out fraud.
Target of this Tuesday’s operation, Lieutenant Colonel Rafael Martins was also mentioned in Tempus Veritatis. Messages found by the PF at the time show him organizing demonstrations with Cid and asking for guidance on the right locations for protests.
The two also talked about covering hotel and food expenses for protesters in Brasília.
The dialogues indicate that Martins instructed Cid to later delete the messages, “with the aim of suppressing evidence of the illicit acts committed”, according to the PF.
Lieutenant Colonel Rodrigo Bezerra and federal police officer Wladimir, in turn, are targets for the first time in the investigation into the alleged coup d’état planned by Bolsonaro and his allies at the end of 2022.
When talking about this Tuesday’s operation, the PF stated that, among the actions that would be developed to prevent Lula’s inauguration, was the “Punhal Verde e Amarelo” plan, drawn up by Mário Fernandes and which would aim to assassinate the PT member and his deputy.
“The planning prepared by those investigated detailed the human and military resources necessary to trigger the actions, using advanced military operational techniques, in addition to the subsequent establishment of an Institutional Crisis Management Office, to be integrated by the investigated themselves for the management of institutional conflicts arising as a result of the actions”, says the PF.
