Estevam Cals Theophilo Gaspar de Oliveira, the first defendant in the coup plot to be acquitted, comes from a traditional family in the Army, was considered one of the High Command and gathered a military group after being denounced to the (Supreme Federal Court).
According to the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) indictment, Theophilo agreed to “coordinate the use of ground forces” for a coup d’état in 2022.
At the time, he was head of the Land Operations Command, the body responsible for preparing and employing the Army. The group has no troops, but sets guidelines for military operations.
The PGR says that the general agreed to make the coup d’état militarily viable during a meeting with Jair Bolsonaro (PL) on December 9, 2022. On that day, the then president allegedly made changes to the coup decree and called Theophilo to talk.
Attorney General Paulo Gonet presents, as the main evidence of the accusation, a message sent by Bolsonaro’s then aide-de-camp Mauro Cid. When referring to Theophilo, Cid said to a colleague in uniform: “… Since Pr [presidente] sign.”
According to the prosecutor, the former aide-de-camp, in a plea bargain, “reiterated, with confidence, that he heard from the defendant Estevam Theophilo himself about his adherence to the coup attempt.” The defense says the employee lied. In testimony, the general said that, at the meeting, Bolsonaro vented about the electoral process and him.
In another statement, Cid said that “general Theophilo with the same line. The great speech he had between the two [generais] was: ‘If there’s an order, if it’s the High Command, we’ll do it’. But no one was going to break the circle of legality, regardless of personal opinions, you know, respecting each person’s personal opinions.”
“Even General Theophilo commented a few times that he wouldn’t either… he wouldn’t agree to take over the Army if General Freire Gomes [comandante do Exército à época] removed, even out of loyalty to him”, he added.
The general’s inclusion in the list of those denounced by the PGR mobilized military personnel who joined the Army High Command in 2022.
The assessment of these former military leaders was that the accusation against Theophilo was based on conversations from third parties, without evidence of his real support for the coup plots.
Even before the accusation, the general’s defense gathered written statements from former Army commanders Freire Gomes and Julio Cesar de Arruda and former Army Chief of Staff Fernando Soares.
This Tuesday, the minister, rapporteur of the coup plot, said he understood that, “despite strong evidence of participation” by Theophilo in the coup plot, it would not be possible to convict him based on the evidence produced in court.
The other three members of the First Panel of the STF, ministers , and , followed the understanding and also voted to acquit the soldier.
Theophilo commanded Coter until December 2023, when he went into reserve. He is the brother of fellow four-star general (reserve) Guilherme Theophilo, candidate for governor of Ceará by the PSDB in 2018 and national secretary of Public Security during Sergio Moro’s tenure at the Ministry of Justice.
Barba
The family has been involved in military life since Manoel Theophilo (1849-1894) and has the distinction of being the only one in the Army whose members were allowed to wear beards.
The ban on bearded men came into force at the end of the 1920s, when a delegation from the French Army came to Brazil hired to professionalize the Brazilian Force.
But, as the beard was a family custom, the Army’s fourth Manoel Theophilo formalized a request to the military leadership for an exception in 1982.
An inquiry was opened to investigate the bearded tradition of the Theophilos. They asked for photos, paintings and the most diverse records, to prove that facial hair was a centuries-old feature.
“Considering the deep-rooted and proven family tradition of five generations, which obliges men with the same name as the applicant to wear a beard, I give the following order: granted, on an exceptional basis”, said the order of the then Minister of the Army, General Walter Pires de Carvalho e Albuquerque, published in the Army Bulletin on March 22, 1982.
