The Public Ethics Commission (CEP) of the Presidency of the Republic initiated an ethical investigation process to investigate the conduct of General Augusto Heleno, former minister of the Institutional Security Office of Jair Bolsonaro’s government, at the ministerial meeting on July 5, 2022.
On that occasion, Heleno made statements that, in the understanding of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and, now, of the CEP, had a coup-like nature. The general is serving a prison sentence for his participation in the coup plot. He was sentenced by the First Panel of the STF to 21 years in prison in the criminal case relating to the attempted coup led by Bolsonaro.
The president of the Public Ethics Commission, Bruno Espiñera Lemos, sent to Minister Alexandre de Moraes, rapporteur of the criminal action against the coup plot in the STF, a statement that the body initiated proceedings against Heleno in a decision on December 15th.
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In the document to the STF, Lemos requests authorization for Heleno to be notified about the process at his residence, where he has been serving his sentence since December 22, when the STF granted him the benefit of humanitarian house arrest due to his poor health. At 78 years old, the former minister suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.
The rapporteur of Heleno’s case at CEP, counselor Manoel Caetano Ferreira Filho, voted to initiate the process because he considered there to be “sufficient evidence of authorship and materiality of conduct contrary to public ethics” in Heleno’s statements at the ministerial meeting.
At the meeting, which was recorded on video, Heleno stated that “if we have to turn the tables, it has to be before the elections”.
On the occasion, Heleno also talks about the idea of infiltrating Abin agents in opposing campaigns and talks about the risk of this strategy being leaked. Bolsonaro then asks the minister to stop talking about the topic and indicates that the matter would be discussed later, privately. The meeting was one of the pieces of evidence used by the PGR to denounce Heleno in the criminal prosecution of the coup plot.
In his vote to open the process at the CEP, Ferreira Filho says that “this is a possible misuse of purpose, aimed at reinforcing the rhetoric of fraud in electoral processes, contradicting the result of the popular will at the polls”.
After notification, Heleno will have ten days to present his defense to the Ethics Committee. If you are found guilty, you may receive a warning or an ethical censure. Both have limited legal consequences.
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Heleno is already serving a sentence for five crimes: attempted violent abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law, coup d’état, armed criminal organization, qualified damage through violence and serious threat and deterioration of listed property.
