The minister, of the (Supreme Federal Court), voted this Tuesday (21) to convict defendants accused of being part of the 2022 da. The minister is still reading his vote. So far, he has already voted for the conviction of former soldiers Ailton Barros and Ângelo Denicoli.
The group was accused by the (Attorney General’s Office) of spreading false information about electronic voting machines and promoting attacks against the heads of those opposed to the coup d’état.
After completing your vote, it will be the turn of ministers , , and . The trial continues this Tuesday.
The defendants in the case are (major expelled from the Army), (army reserve major), (army sergeant), (army lieutenant colonel), (army colonel), (federal police officer) and (president of Instituto Voto Legal).
The minister defends that the defendants be convicted of the crimes of coup d’état, attempted abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law, criminal organization, qualified damage to public property and deterioration of listed property.
Moraes’ vote is shorter than in the central nucleus. He justified reading a summary by the fact that the materiality of the crimes had already been proven with the conviction of the central nucleus of the coup plot, and it was only necessary to analyze the authorship of the defendants.
According to the minister, the defendants involved in the disinformation core were involved in five of the coup plots — focusing on spreading false information about the electoral process before and after the elections.
“Several enforcement actions proved the activity of this criminal organization. This is important because the conduct attributed to the co-defendants falls into exactly some of these 13 enforcement moments of the criminal organization,” he said.
Moraes stated that the defendants’ tactic for mass dissemination of false information is compared to the “new extremist digital populism”. The minister said that the spread of disinformation and attacks on authorities began and ended “at the specific command of the criminal organization”.
The minister argues that the use of social networks for disinformation by criminal organizations cannot be confused with freedom of expression.
“It is a fallacy, an absurd criminal and anti-democratic lie to say that this use of an attack on the Electoral Court, an attack on the Judiciary, an attack on democracy, hate speech, that this is freedom of expression. This is a crime typified in the Penal Code, it is an instrument of aggression to propagate hate speech against the Democratic Rule of Law”, he added.
The nucleus is made up of former members of the Bolsonaro government at lower levels, Army soldiers and those accused of spreading disinformation about the elections.
According to the complaint, former Abin members Giancarlo Rodrigues and Marcelo Bormevet were part of a parallel structure of the agency for the production and dissemination of fake news and attacks against Bolsonaro’s political opponents.
Gonet says that the major and former advisor to the Ministry of Health Ângelo Denicoli worked with the former director of Abin Alexandre Ramagem in Jair Bolsonaro’s “systematic attacks on the electoral process”.
Lieutenant Colonel Guilherme Marques Almeida is accused of spreading false material about fraud in the presidential elections, and Colonel Reginaldo Vieira de Abreu allegedly tried to interfere in the Armed Forces report on the electronic voting system.
Carlos César Moretzsohn Rocha would have been responsible for producing a “maliciously manipulated technical report” by the Instituto Voto Legal for the Liberal Party.
Reserve Major Ailton Barros, finally, is accused of promoting virtual attacks against the heads of the Armed Forces who were against the coup attempt. The targets would have been determined by former minister Braga Netto, as shown by messages obtained by the investigation.
“They are cowardly militiamen who not only attack their enemies, but also their enemies’ families,” said Moraes.
The defendants’ defenses claim that they did not even know each other. In oral arguments last week, the lawyers denied any connection between their representatives and the acts of January 8, 2023 and said there was no proof of this link.
They also argued that the dissemination of misinformation or attacks on authorities had not been proven and that any sending of a link in private conversations could not be included in the crimes in question.
