The general was arrested this Saturday morning (14) by the (PF) on suspicion of . Former Minister of Defense and the Civil House of (PL), he was also vice-president on the former president’s ticket in the 2022 election.
The operation was authorized by the minister of the (Supreme Federal Court), with approval from the PGR (Attorney General’s Office). Retired colonel Flávio Peregrino, one of Braga Netto’s main assistants, was also the target of searches.
According to PF investigations, the reserve general participated in a group of people responsible for inciting the military to carry out a coup d’état.
The corporation alleges that Braga Netto had tried to interfere in the investigations, by seeking to obtain confidential data from the collaboration agreement of , Bolsonaro’s former aide-de-camp. Still according to investigations, he obtained and in 2022 the elected president, Lula (PT), his vice, Geraldo Alckmin (PSB), and Moraes himself.
The military’s defense stated this Saturday (14) that he did not try to obstruct the investigations. In a previous statement, Braga Netto stated that “it was never a coup, much less a plan to murder someone.”
1) Interference in investigations
According to the PF, Braga Netto had acted, “repeatedly and prominently”, to impede the investigations. The retired general was trying to gain access to confidential information about Mauro Cid’s denunciation.
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 an official, and trying to understand what I had said.”
Evidence of such actions, according to the police, would have been found on Mauro Cid’s father’s cell phone.
2) New testimony from Cid
The arrest decision is based on new documents found by the PF and on revelations made by Mauro Cid in a statement given on November 21st.
In a previous version presented to the PF, Bolsonaro’s former aide-de-camp had said that the meeting of Special Forces soldiers with Braga Netto in November 2022 occurred because the soldiers wanted to take photos and greet the general.
The hearing term for Cid’s testimony to the Supreme Court, held in November, says that the lieutenant colonel took the military to Braga Netto’s apartment to talk about the “indignation with the country’s situation and the need for concrete actions”.
PF investigations, therefore, indicate that the coup plan involving Lula’s death would have been discussed at the general’s house in .
3) Payment by wine bag and ‘agribusiness people’
According to the new version given in Mauro Cid’s statement, the then Major Rafael de Oliveira met with Braga Netto days after a meeting with military personnel at the retired general’s house.
On that occasion, Braga Netto allegedly handed Oliveira cash, kept in a “wine bag”, to “carry out the operation”. The values, according to Cid’s statement, would have been obtained from “agribusiness people”.
The excerpt from Cid’s testimony at the STF does not make it clear whether the money had been transferred with the aim of financing the plan to assassinate authorities. In previous sections of the statement, Mauro Cid said that Lieutenant Colonel Rafael de Oliveira asked for R$100,000 to take Bolsonaro supporters from other regions of the country to the coup camp set up in front of the Army Headquarters, in Brasília.
The conclusions of the Federal Police and Alexandre de Moraes, however, are that the amounts were used to make the plan to execute authorities viable.
Moraes highlights in the decision that there is “strong evidence and substantial evidence” that Braga Netto “contributed, to a more effective and important degree than was previously known” to the planning and financing of a coup d’état whose consummation included the plan of detention and possible execution of Moraes himself, in addition to Lula and Alckmin.
The Federal Police also seized a document at the PL (Liberal Party) 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 context of the document is serious and reveals that, possibly, questions were asked to Mauro Cid about the content of the collaboration agreement made by him at the police headquarters, which were answered by him, in red”, pointed out the PF in its report end.
Also found on Peregrino’s desk, according to the report, was a hand-filled sheet with the title “operation 142”, a flowchart of what would be a coup d’état and the phrase “Lula does not climb the ramp”.
The retired colonel, unlike Braga Netto, was not indicted in the PF’s final report on the attempted coup d’état.
5) ‘There was no obstruction’
The defense of retired general Walter Braga Netto denied, in a statement released this Saturday afternoon (14), about the 2022 coup plot.
The general’s lawyers say they will speak out in the case after being “fully aware of the facts that gave rise to 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 text of the defense, led by Luís Henrique Cesar Prata.
