The reserve general’s defense denied in a statement released this Saturday afternoon (14) that there was obstruction to investigations into the coup plot. This was what led to Braga Netto’s arrest this morning.
According to the note, the general’s technical defense will appear in the case after being “fully aware of the facts that gave rise to the decision.” Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the STF (Supreme Federal Court), authorized the arrest following a request from the Federal Police. The PGR (Attorney General’s Office) approved the decision.
“With the belief in the observance of due legal process, we will have the opportunity to prove that there was no obstruction to the investigations”, says the statement from the defense, led by lawyer Luís Henrique Cesar Prata.
former government minister () and also candidate for vice on the defeated 2022 ticket, was at his home in Rio de Janeiro when he was arrested. He is also in Rio — the organization is subordinate to the Eastern Military Command, a body that was headed by Braga Netto himself from 2016 to 2019.
Addresses linked to the general were also the target of searches and seizures. The PF also carried out searches against Braga Netto’s main assistant since the Bolsonaro government. He was the subject of a different prison sentence and is prohibited from speaking to the others being investigated.
According to the head of the PGR, Paulo Gonet, the representation of the Federal Police brings “sufficient evidence of the authorship and materiality of the serious crimes committed by the defendants”. He also says that only Braga Netto’s preventive detention would be sufficient to mitigate risks to public order and the application of criminal law.
Suspicions related to the attempt to interfere in the investigations have been accumulating since September 2023, when Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid had his award-winning collaboration agreement approved by the STF.
Cid himself reported, in testimony, that Braga Netto directly sought out his father, General Mauro Lourena Cid, to ask for details of what he had said in the award-winning collaboration.
“This happened shortly after my release [em setembro de 2023]when I collaborated during that period, where not only he but other intermediaries tried to find out what I had said”, said Cid in a statement to the PF.
“I made contact with my father, they tried to see what I had, if I had really collaborated, because the press was saying a lot of things, he was not official, and trying to understand what I had said. So much so that my father in response, which is the third one, said ‘no, Cid said it wasn’t’.”
The Federal Police also seized a document at the PL headquarters in February, on a table used by Colonel Peregrino, with questions and answers about the accusation. According to investigators, these elements indicate an attempt by Braga Netto and Peregrino to obtain confidential details about Mauro Cid’s collaboration agreement.
The Federal Police also say that Braga Netto was the one who “obtained and delivered the necessary resources” to carry out the plan to kill Lula (PT), Geraldo Alckmin (PSB) and Moraes.
The statement was made after Mauro Cid detailed, in testimony, that the, for lieutenant colonel Rafael de Oliveira —indicted for being one of the executors of the general, who was put into action on December 15, 2022 to kill or arrest Alexandre de Moraes.
O , under the guidance of one of the group leaders. The Federal Police are still trying to confirm the identities of five of the six members of the plot.
The operation against the general was scheduled to take place on Thursday (12). Braga Netto, however, was with his family on a vacation trip to Alagoas, scheduled to return in the late afternoon. The Federal Police decided to arrest the retired general on Saturday, when he was already back at the house he keeps in Copacabana.
In a statement, the Army stated that it monitors the measures taken as determined by the Court and collaborates with ongoing investigations. “The Force does not comment on processes conducted by other bodies, a procedure that has guided the respectful relationship between the Brazilian Army and other institutions of the Republic”, completes the text.
Braga Netto was Minister of the Civil House and Defense during the Bolsonaro administration and only left the government to join the PL and form, as vice-president, the presidential ticket in the re-election campaign.
He was part of Bolsonaro’s closest circle and, according to the PF, part of the group suspected of the coup plot.
According to the investigations, he would have participated in the “Nucleus Responsible for Inciting Military Personnel to Join the Coup d’Etat” and the “Nucleus of High Ranking Officers with Influence and Support for Other Nuclei”.
Among those indicted are the then-elected president, (), the vice-president, (), and Moraes, who are suspected of being involved in 2022. This plan would have been discussed at the reserve general’s house in Brasília.
