Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), began voting this Tuesday, 21st, in the trial of the disinformation nucleus (nucleus 4) of the coup plot. As rapporteur, Moraes is the first to present the vote. He was the one who supervised the investigation, authorized investigations and conducted interrogations of witnesses and defendants.
The minister stated that the disinformation nucleus acted like a digital militia and tried to interfere in the 2022 elections. All, according to Moraes, under the command of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), already convicted, and to justify exceptional measures.
“The modus operandi of this new extremist digital populism is always the same, making it possible to identify the atypical behavior of systematized attacks,” said Moraes.
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The minister highlighted the attacks directed at the then commanders of the Army, General Marco Antonio Freire Gomes, and of the Air Force, Lieutenant-Brigadier Carlos de Almeida Baptista Junior, for rejecting the coup.
“They are cowardly militiamen who attack not only their enemies, but also their family members,” said Moraes. “A criminal organization that tried to take the Federative Republic of Brazil by storm.”
The defendants in group 4 were accused of “strategic disinformation operations” and attacks on the electoral system and on institutions and authorities, including through the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin) and the Institutional Security Office (GSI).
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They are responsible for five crimes – armed criminal organization, coup d’état, attempted violent abolition of the democratic state, deterioration of listed property and qualified damage to the Union’s property.
For Moraes, the objective of the attacks and the “massive dissemination of disinformation” was to delegitimize the Electoral Justice and create a popular uprising so that the Armed Forces could join the coup.
“It is an absurd, criminal and anti-democratic lie to say that the attack on the Electoral Court, the Judiciary and democracy is freedom of expression. This is a crime typified in the Penal Code. It is an instrument of aggression, of spreading hate speech, of breaking the Democratic Rule of Law”, added the rapporteur.
When reviewing the evidence, the minister highlighted that Abin employees used the agency’s systems to generate fake news, promote attacks on institutions and monitor authorities, including members of the Federal Supreme Court.
“They acted as a militia intelligence cell of a criminal group”, criticized Moraes when referring to “Abin Paralela”.
“Abin Paralela emerged mainly with the purpose of discrediting the institutions, the Superior Electoral Court, the electronic voting machines, delegitimizing the elections and democracy itself, opening a field for the coup d’état and the permanence of this political group, which turned into a criminal organization, in power, regardless of the popular will”, summarized the rapporteur.
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See who responds to the process in core 4:
- Ailton Gonçalves Moraes Barros, retired Army captain, who allegedly disseminated attacks on military commanders;
- Ângelo Martins Denicoli, Army reserve major;
- Carlos César Moretzsohn Rocha, former president of the Instituto Voto Legal (IVL), who produced the report used by the Liberal Party to call for the annulment of votes in the second round of the 2022 elections;
- Giancarlo Gomes Rodrigues, Army sub-lieutenant and former Abin employee, would have participated in “Abin Paralela”;
- Guilherme Marques de Almeida, lieutenant colonel of the Army, shared false publications about fraud at the polls;
- Marcelo Araújo Bormevet, federal police officer and former Abin employee, would also have participated in “Abin Paralela”;
- Reginaldo Vieira de Abreu, Army colonel.
While the defenses sought to remove the defendants from the chain of command of the coup plan, in an attempt to minimize their participation in the plot, Moraes argued that, although they did not actively act in all phases of the coup plan, they participated in executional acts that consummated the crimes. Therefore, for the rapporteur, everyone has criminal responsibility.
“Looking at the whole, it is very easy to see that everything ran in parallel and all the centers communicated. The criminal organization operated on several fronts”, argued the minister.
Ministers Cristiano Zanin, Luiz Fux, Cármen Lúcia and Flávio Dino vote next. The sentences will be defined at the end of the trial, if there is a majority for convictions.
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