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The Federal Police’s final report on the alleged coup attempt revealed that former president Jair Bolsonaro prepared for the plot almost two years before the results of the 2022 elections. According to investigators, the former head of the Executive had, including an escape plan in March 2021 if the coup attempt failed.
The PF’s suspicion is due to files found on the computer of Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, Bolsonaro’s former aide-de-camp. The military had a slide presentation with plans for military personnel to occupy “strategic structures” in order to inhibit the action of the Judiciary. The file date is March 22, 2021.
According to the PF, Bolsonaro left Brazil to avoid arrest and wait for the outcome of the coup acts of January 8, 202/Photo: Evaristo Sa/AFP
The researchers’ thesis is that institutional disruption came close on September 7, 2021, in the face of Bolsonaro’s offensive against the Federal Supreme Court (STF). The then president made a series of threats to the Judiciary and Brazilian democracy during the Independence holiday demonstrations. At the height, he went so far as to say that he would no longer obey the Court’s orders,
“The evidence collected demonstrates that those investigated planned the scenario of Jair Bolsonaro’s confrontation with the Judiciary, which would lead to an institutional rupture. As explained, this fact occurred more incisively on September 7, 2021, when the then president threatened the STF and its ministers, highlighting the practice of acts against the democratic regime, restricting the actions of the Brazilian Supreme Court”, said the report.
However, the coup plot only advanced after Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s victory in the 2022 presidential elections. The PF report points out that the slides found on Mauro Cid’s computer predicted three scenarios that would lead to democratic rupture. They are:
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If there were possible intervention by the STF in the Executive;
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If Jair Bolsonaro’s re-election ticket were revoked;
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If the Supreme Court or the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) vetoed the printed vote, if it were approved by Congress — the project was overturned in the Legislature.
The plan also provided for intimidation of Justice with the military occupation of “strategic structures”. “One of the objectives was the occupation of strategic structures by military personnel who had joined the coup attempt, to show support for then-president Jair Bolsonaro and, thereby, possibly inhibit any State action decreed by the Judiciary,” the PF wrote in the report. .
For the investigation, Bolsonaro intended to flee abroad if the plan did not work. “In this context, once again the use of military techniques by those investigated against the Brazilian State itself is evident with the aim of guaranteeing the escape of Jair Bolsonaro if the attempted coup d’état were frustrated”, says the document.
Jair Bolsonaro left Brazil in December 2022, after losing the elections and refusing to participate in Lula’s inauguration ceremony. According to the PF, he traveled to avoid arrest and wait for the outcome of the coup acts of January 8, 2023 — which culminated in the depredation of the buildings of the Três Poderes.
