The siege on Jair Bolsonaro has tightened more this Thursday. The Federal Police (PF) has completed its investigation into the coup attempt on January 8, 2023. Its conclusions did not surprise many Brazilians: the former president participated in a plot to prevent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after having defeated him in the October 2022 elections.
They were also charged with the crimes of attempted “violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, coup d’état and criminal organization”36 other people, including reserve general Braga Netto, former Minister of Defense and former candidate for vice president in the October 2022 race, the national president of the Liberal Party (PL), Valdemar Costa Neto, the former director general of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin) Alexandre Ramagem, currently a federal deputy, and the former minister of the Institutional Security Office (GSI), the then active general Augusto Heleno.
The conclusions of the PF have reached the judge of the Federal Supreme Court (TSF), Alexandre de Moraeswho, along with Lula, had been considered a target to eliminate a conspiracy of radical Bolsonaro supporters. The matter is not only judicial, but political: the PF announcement is known when Bolsonarism has been demanding in public space, social networks and Parliament itself, an amnesty for the protagonists of 8Eamong them those who went into exile in Argentina.
The PF recalled in its announcement that The evidence was obtained “through various police investigations carried out over almost two years, based on the breaking of telematic, telephone, banking and fiscal secrecy, award-winning collaboration, searches and seizures, among other measures duly authorized by the Judiciary.”
The coup plan
The police add that the investigations revealed a structure based on a division of labor, with the existence of the following groups: a “Center for Disinformation and Attacks on the Electoral System“, a “Center Responsible for Inciting the Military to Join the Coup d’état”, a “Legal Center”, an “Operational Center to Support Coup Actions”, a “Parallel Intelligence Center and, finally, a ” Coercive Measures Compliance Operational Center”.
For Dora Kramer, columnist for the São Paulo newspaper ‘Folha’, “there is no reasonable doubt that the murder plot discovered by the Federal Police can be separated from the coup context that culminated with the attack on the symbolic headquarters of the Republic on January 8, which gave rise to investigations that increasingly reveal the existence of a seditious conspiracy within the State”. In light of the “paths of some characters”, it is, in his opinion, “difficult to disconnect the plot set in motion shortly after the 2022 elections from the attitudes and connections of then-president Bolsonaro.”
But, in addition, other analysts pointed out, his candidate for vice president, Braga Netto, was nothing less than host of at least one meeting with the possible executors of the attempted poisoning of Lulahis vice president Geraldo Alckmin and De Moraes. At that meeting was Bolsonaro’s aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, currently detained and under trial. This is based on evidence collected by the PF.
What is striking about the PF investigations, both of the events of 8E and the failed assassination plan, is the high number of uniformed officers who participated in the plot, with the exception of a federal police officer.
Another prominent analyst, Mónica Bérgamo, recalled that, during the last far-right government, Bolsonaro not only repeated his coup threats, but also verbally attacked the STF ministers who foreshadowed the subsequent attitudes investigated by the PF. Bolsonaro has been disqualified from holding public office until 2030 for having discredited the electoral system while seeking his re-election.
Bolsonaro’s reaction
“I can’t expect anything from a team that uses creativity to denounce me,” said the former president, when the charges filed by the PF became known. “De Moraes directs the entire investigation, adjusts testimonies, detains without charges, collects evidence and has a very creative team of advisors. He does everything that the law does not say.” The former Army captain announced that he will fight a battle in the Attorney General’s Office (Attorney General’s Office) to prevent justice from advancing. “I’m going to see what my lawyer says.”
The former president’s lawyers have said that their client “He never agreed with any movement that sought to destroy the Democratic Rule of Law or the institutions that pave it.
However, one of the key elements of the investigation is the testimony of former Army commander Freire Gomes, who said that in a meeting Bolsonaro himself detailed the possibility of “using legal instruments” such as the Guarantee of Law and Order (GLO). , the State of Defense or the State of Siege to prevent Lula from returning to the presidency on the first day of 2023.
