On Saturday (14) it created an unprecedented event in the country’s history. Never before had a military officer of the highest rank been detained by decision of the , in a process conducted by civilians.
In the fight for Justice due to the investigation into the coup plot involving uniforms, members of the Army’s top brass try to distance Braga Netto from the institution.
Four general officers interviewed by the Sheet They say that the novelty of the prison causes embarrassment for the barracks. They justify, however, that he would have carried out the suspicious acts as a politician, far from the barracks and having already burned bridges with the officialdom.
Braga Netto’s relationship with the Armed Forces leadership was frayed at the end of 2022, during the (PL) government. At that time, the military already suspected that he was working behind the scenes to weaken the command of General Freire Gomes, then head of the Army, because of his resistance to the coup plans.
The suspicions became certain when the Federal Police revealed, in February, the retired captain Ailton Barros. In the conversation, the general said to. “Shit,” he wrote.
“Sit your dick on Batista Júnior [então chefe da Aeronáutica]. People suffering, arbitrary acts being done [sic] and he is locked away in privileges”, wrote Braga Netto, according to dialogues captured by the PF. “Traitor of the country. From then on. It makes his life and his family hell.”
Braga Netto also encouraged Ailton Barros to spread an account of a , still in 2022. “It even seems like he’s been a PT, since he was little”, said the text. Paiva is the current commander of the Army.
The facts distanced Braga Netto from the current military leadership, who now say that they expected the general’s arrest sooner or later. There is also fear that closer military personnel, such as generals Augusto Heleno and Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, will suffer the same fate.
The understanding that has been defended —and disseminated— by the leadership of the Armed Forces is that the coup plot was an action by retired military personnel, and not a military coup plan, an institutional initiative.
The PF has so far indicted 25 soldiers for participating in the coup plot. Among them are seven general officers — one of whom (Estevam Theophilo) was in the Army High Command at the end of the Bolsonaro government. In all, .
Although the arrest was already expected, it took the Army leadership by surprise. According to reports, commander Tomás Paiva was informed by the PF on Friday night (13) about the operation, without knowing the targets, as usual. The information was passed on to the Minister of Defense, José Mucio Monteiro.
According to reports, Tomás only became aware that Braga Netto would be arrested at around 6 am — the Armed Forces leadership is notified in advance of operations against military personnel only when warrants must be carried out at official facilities.
For about three hours, Army top brass debated where he would be held. The caution is due to concern about the hierarchy to keep a four-star general in custody.
in Rio de Janeiro, in an individual cell. He was arrested on suspicion of obstruction of justice, because he had sought confidential details of Mauro Cid’s plea bargain with the lieutenant colonel’s family. All military personnel have the right to be detained in barracks.
The general, however, can be taken to a common prison if he is declared unworthy for officership by the Superior Military Court. To do so, he would have to be sentenced to more than two years in prison, in a final and unappealable process and with the loss of his post and patent confirmed in the Military Court.
In a statement, the Army said it has collaborated 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,” he stated.
Despite the Judiciary framework, Minister José Mucio has opted for a policy of accommodation with the Armed Forces to cool the crisis. The also avoids thorny topics for the military —, held in 2023.
Mucio was contacted, but did not respond to the report. Braga Netto’s defense denies that he tried to interfere in the investigations and says that this will be proven. Previously, he denied having participated in the coup plot.
Brazilian history records other imprisoned generals. Army General Euclydes Figueiredo Filho was detained for ten days in 1989 for calling the then Army Minister, Leônidas Pires Gonçalves, a “coward” and “missing”.
Euclydes was the brother of João Baptista Figueiredo, general who presided over the country in . He was also imprisoned in the Eastern Military Command.
For disciplinary reasons, Marshal Hermes da Fonseca was arrested twice, and generals Alcides Etchegoyen and Fiúza de Castro were detained for a few days in 1955.
General Hugo Abreu was arrested in 1978, during the military dictatorship, for sending colleagues in uniform a document with accusations against members of the Ernesto Geisel government. The following year he was arrested again for publishing a book with the same complaints.
Historian Carlos Fico, a student of the military dictatorship, says that the difference in Braga Netto’s case is that the arrest is not due to internal Army issues.
“The originality really lies in the fact that it is not, in the case of Braga Neto, an arrest ordered by the Executive Branch, be it the President of the Republic or the Minister of War. It is not a simple disciplinary matter, but a crime against democracy, an attempted coup”, says Carlos.
“In this sense, it is unprecedented because preventive detention results from an action by the Justice and also because we are in a democratic phase, that is, it is not an arrest order in the context of an institutional crisis”, he adds.
