Minister of Defense says that those involved do not represent the Armed Forces and that it is in the interest of identifying and punishing whoever is guilty
The Minister of Defense, said this Wednesday (November 20, 2024) that the military involved in killing the president (PT) and other government officials do not represent the Armed Forces. He declared that they acted on each other’s initiative.
“These are people who belong to the Armed Forces, but they were not representing the military, they had their CPFs. It was everyone’s initiative. And I want everything to be investigated, for the guilty parties to be truly judged by justice. The STF is responsible for this [Supremo Tribunal Federal] and the Federal Police. We only know when the fact is accomplished, when the process is concluded”, said the minister.
Múcio stated that the military also wants, “whoever tarnishes the names of the Armed Forces, if guilty, must be punished”. He said he had not yet spoken to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) about the episode.
Watch (3min59s):
THE PF OPERATION
The PF (Federal Police) carried out an operation this Tuesday (Nov 19), targeting suspects of being part of a criminal organization responsible for planning, according to findings, a coup d’état to prevent the elected government from taking office in the 2022 Elections.
Agents target so-called “black kids”, a group formed by Special Forces soldiers, and investigate a plan to execute Lula and Alckmin.
According to the corporation, the group also planned the arrest and execution of STF (Supreme Federal Court) minister Alexandre de Moraes. The crimes investigated, according to the PF, constitute, in theory, the violent abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law, a coup d’état and a criminal organization.
5 preventive arrest warrants and 3 search and seizure warrants were issued in Rio de Janeiro, Goiás, Amazonas and the Federal District. 15 measures were determined, such as the prohibition of contact between those investigated, the delivery of passports within 24 hours and the suspension of the exercise of public functions.
One of the targets of Operation Countercoup, as it is being called, is retired general Mário Fernandes. He was executive secretary of the General Secretariat of the Presidency in the government of (PL). He was also an advisor in the office of the deputy and former Minister of Health, (PL-RJ).
Also targeted by the warrants were lieutenant colonels Hélio Ferreira Lima, Rafael Martins de Oliveira and Rodrigo Bezerra de Azevedo, and federal police officer Wladmir Matos Soares. All were subject to preventive detention and a ban on maintaining contact with other people being investigated, as well as a ban on leaving the country, with the consequent surrender of their respective passports.
In , the PF said that a criminal organization “a high level of technical-military knowledge was used to plan, coordinate and execute illicit actions in the months of November and December 2022”.
The plan was being called “Green and Yellow Dagger” and would be executed on December 15, 2022.
“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 actions”said the PF.
