The defenses of four more defendants from the so-called military core of the coup plot denied to the First Panel of the (Supreme Federal Court) that they had participated in that of Minister Alexandre de Moraes and President Lula (PT).
The trial began last Tuesday (11), when the panel heard the lawyers of six defendants, in addition to the statement from the PGR (Attorney General’s Office).
The majority of those reported by this group are officers with training in special forces — the so-called . The ministers are expected to present their vote on the case next week.
The first to speak out this Wednesday was Jeffrey Chiquini, the lieutenant colonel’s lawyer, the only defendant to personally attend the trial sessions.
He is accused of being part of the murder of Moraes, which would take place in Brasília, on December 15, 2022:
The Federal Police say they have identified two of the six members of the group who allegedly acted in this plan. Azevedo, who would use the code name Brasil, would be one of them.
Documents presented by the military’s defense and others obtained by Sheet show that he worked in the barracks during the morning and afternoon of December 15th.
The main evidence for the prosecution is that one of the cell phones used in the plan against Moraes was used by Azevedo two weeks after the failed operation.
“He put the chip in a cell phone that would have been used 14 days after the fact, a cell phone that would have been used in a clandestine action. Is there anything else he has against him? No,” said the lawyer.
“All we have is: on December 15, 2022, there was a clandestine monitoring action at the residence of Minister Alexandre de Moraes. Fourteen days later, the cell phone connects close to Azevedo’s residence, and a chip with his CPF is placed in that cell phone. And that cell phone is used for six months. So a special force put his CPF on a cell phone used in a clandestine action for six months?”, stated Chiquini.
Azevedo 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 soldier says he took the device from a box full of phones in the CCOP (Operations Coordination Center) warehouse, at the barracks in Goiânia, on the eve of Christmas.
During the oral argument, Chiquini stated that the Federal Police delegate responsible for the investigation lied, that the PGR’s piece is the worst in Brazilian history and that, having already acted in a jury trial, he could assess the quality of the accusation.
In closing, Flávio Dino, president of the First Panel, stated that the court has a history of respect for lawyers and asked for similar treatment. The minister also mentioned the presidency’s police power.
“The court is also the recipient of respect, and this also applies to this tribune, which is not parliamentary, not part of the jury court. And that is called loyalty. The court has been extremely loyal to Brazilian lawyers. Therefore, we demand identical treatment, not only in this tribune but also outside it”, said Dino.
“I make this observation in the exercise of the police power that belongs to this presidency. We need to maintain the trial in these terms, without prejudice to other measures and other moments”, he concluded.
Subsequently, the lieutenant colonel by Ronald Ferreira de Araujo Junior was defended by Lissandro Sampaio and João Carlos Dalmagro Junior.
In the final arguments of the case, the PGR asked that the accusation against the soldier be downgraded and that he be held accountable only for incitement to commit a crime and not for the five types of criminal offenses with which the others are accused. Furthermore, Gonet suggested that he had the power to negotiate relevant criminal benefits.
The justification is that the soldier spread false information about fraud in the electoral process to incite the Armed Forces to break democracy, but did not participate in meetings of the coup plot.
“He is not a ‘black kid’. He never was. He had no participation in these events. In the closing arguments it was recognized that no additional elements were gathered regarding the defendant’s participation in the criminal organization,” said Sampaio.
Igor Laboissieri, lawyer for the retired lieutenant colonel, said that the fact that his client had, according to the complaint, forwarded an apocryphal text with a coup tone to his commanders does not mean that he agreed with its content or had participated in its planning.
The letter was published on the internet on November 29, 2022. Under the title “letter from active officers to the Army Command”, it sought to pressure the then Force commander, Marco Antonio Freire Gomes, to support a military coup.
“His own hierarchical superiors say that they were never pressured and that they never saw Cavaliere try to pressure or convince any soldier. The broadcast does not represent protagonism in any way,” said Laboissieri. “He doesn’t produce, he doesn’t make, he doesn’t sign the published letter,” he said.
The lawyer also said that the client is not a “black kid” and, without this connection, the accusation is weakened.
The last to speak out was Sergio William Lima dos Anjos, in defense of federal police officer Wladimir Matos Soares. A central part of the defensive thesis was the isolation of the defendant in relation to the others involved in the case. According to him, the complaint is flawed, fragmentary and there is no individualization of conduct.
The prosecution claims that Wladimir was responsible for monitoring, but the defense counters by saying that the police officer had no contact with the other defendants.
“He’s a federal police officer. He’s not a ‘black kid.’
According to the Federal Police, Wladimir passed on information about the security of the president (PT) during the government transition to people linked to (PL).
Still according to the investigation, he told Bolsonaro’s allies that he was waiting for the then president’s “pen stroke” to assist in the coup d’état.
In audio, he states that an armed group of which he was part of the State as soon as then-president Bolsonaro signed a decree intervening against the result of the presidential elections.
“I was there too, right, Lu, I can tell you here in private, die here, I did, I was going, we were part, we are, you know, of a special operations team that was ready to defend the president armed, you know, and with high firepower to push whoever came forward”, says the police officer.
