of the reserve general was maintained by the (Federal Supreme Court) on Saturday afternoon (14), after the custody hearing.
The hearing was held via videoconference and led by Rafael Henrique Janela Tamai Rocha, judge at the São Paul Court of Justice and assistant to Minister Alexandre de Moraes’ office — who, in turn, maintained the arrest. The law provides for this procedure to verify the regularity of the arrest and the treatment given to the detainee.
The former government minister () and also candidate for vice on the defeated 2022 ticket was arrested on Saturday morning on the grounds that there was obstruction to investigations into a coup plot that aimed to prevent the inauguration of President Lula (PT). Addresses linked to the general were also the target of searches and seizures.
Braga Netto was at his home in Rio de Janeiro when he was arrested by the Federal Police. He, 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. Preventive detention has no end date.
The operation was requested by the PF and authorized by , with approval from the PGR (Attorney General’s Office).
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 Braga Netto’s preventive detention would be necessary to mitigate risks to public order and the application of criminal law.
The reserve general’s defense of the investigations and said that this will be proven. In a previous statement, he stated that “it was never a coup, much less a plan to murder someone.”
The Federal Police 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.
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 PF also says that Braga Netto was the one who “obtained and delivered the necessary resources” for a, in 2022, the then elected president, (), the vice, (), and Moraes. This plan would have been discussed at the retired general’s house in .
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 PF is still trying to confirm the identity of 5 of the 6 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 PF decided to arrest the reserve 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”.
