The minister, of the (Supreme Federal Court), maintains a soldier accused of being part of a murder attempt. The investigation against the lieutenant colonel, however, has gaps regarding his participation in the case.
The investigation lasts almost a year and . The soldiers will be tried by the Supreme Court in November.
He is a defendant in the coup plot accused of, under the code name “Brazil”, carrying out a plan to neutralize Moraes. The operation would have taken place in Brasília, on December 15, 2022.
The main evidence for the prosecution is that one of the cell phones used in the plan against Moraes was used by him two weeks after the failed operation.
The Federal Police, however, did not obtain proof that the soldier was in Brasília on the day of the attack on the Supreme Court minister. Azevedo’s defense says that the lieutenant colonel was at home that day, celebrating his 41st birthday.
Rodrigo Bezerra de Azevedo is an Army soldier with training in Special Forces — the so-called .
The plan to murder Moraes was called , according to the investigation. Six people, with country codes, chatted in a group on the Signal app to execute the strategy.
Of the six members of the group, the Federal Police say they have identified only two: Azevedo and the lieutenant colonel.
The PF concluded based on messages from this group that the military had already targeted Moraes with all members of the clandestine operation in place — one close to the minister’s apartment and others spread across the central area of Brasília.
Documents presented by the military’s defense and others obtained by Sheet show that the lieutenant colonel worked in the barracks during the morning and afternoon of December 15th.
That day, Azevedo entered his password to enter the barracks in Goiânia at 10:42 am. Before having lunch, at 11:28 am, he bought a truffle from a military doctor for R$3
Later, he had lunch in the barracks, as shown in an Army document. There are no more official records about Azevedo’s presence in the Special Operations Command on December 15.
The soldier’s wife stated that Azevedo returned home around 6 pm. It was his birthday, and Ariane Azevedo says she prepared a family dinner. She made small portions of food, like starters, and asked her husband to buy a dish at Spoleto, using a delivery app.
“It was a small celebration: me, him and our daughter”, says Ariane. “We took a photo of his cell phone, but the cell phone has been seized by the Federal Police and we do not have access to this evidence.”
Azevedo’s cell phone was seized by the PF on November 19, 2024. The expert managed to break the lieutenant colonel’s cell phone password, but found nothing relevant to the investigation.
The controversy over Azevedo is linked to the cell phone used on the day Moraes was the target of an assassination attempt.
He placed a chip with his own name, on December 29, 2022, in one of the cell phones used in the clandestine military operation two weeks earlier. The phone was registered in the “Copa 2022” group with the code name “Brazil”.
The soldier says he took the cell phone from the CCOP (Operations Coordination Center) warehouse, at the barracks in Goiânia. There was a box full of phones in one of the closets in the room. On the eve of Christmas, Azevedo took the device and took it home, according to his version.
“In that box there was a cell phone that looked like a much newer cell phone, a smartphone, different from the other cell phones that were there. I decided to get that cell phone to test if it worked, so I could start using it when I went to the CCOP”, stated Azevedo at a hearing at the Supreme Court.
He says he kept this cell phone at home for a few days until he found a compatible charger on December 26, when he plugged it in. Three days later, he bought chips for his cell phone — one in his name and others in the names of random people.
Seven Army officers interviewed by Sheet They say that black kids often use techniques to anonymize their cell phones to avoid identification in military operations.
“My intention has always been to have a backup cell phone, which we use on missions,” said Azevedo. He kept the phone until the second half of 2023, when the device broke during a parachute jump.
There is no record prior to December 26 that the cell phone was in Azevedo’s possession. The evidence used by the PGR indicates different locations between the phone used in the murder plan and the soldier’s personal phone on dates close to the clandestine operation against Moraes.
Prosecutor Paulo Gonet’s thesis is that the lieutenant colonel left his personal cell phone at work and traveled to Brasília. “The police authority indicates that Rodrigo Bezerra de Azevedo purposely distanced himself from his device to forge a different location from that actually occupied”, argues the PGR.
The defense disputes this version. One of the pieces of evidence that Azevedo had his cell phone on December 15, according to lawyer Jeffrey Chiquini, is that he interacted on the phone with his sister, who wanted congratulations.
A document attached by the defense shows that Azevedo saw his sister’s message at 5:57 pm. It would not be possible, according to the lawyers’ version, for the soldier to arrive in time for the plan in Brasília if he was still in Goiânia at the end of the afternoon.
Moraes analyzed three requests for Azevedo’s release — all of which were denied by the minister. “The need to protect public order stands out, having been corroborated by the receipt of the complaint against the custodian, with no supervening fact that could rule out the need to maintain precautionary custody”, says Moraes.
In a statement, the STF press office stated that Moraes only spoke out in the case records.
