2024-02-08 13:37:40
The Federal Police of Brazil carried out a major operation this Thursday that points to former President Jair Bolsonaro, as well as several of his closest allies, including former ministers and high-ranking military officers, for attempting a coup d’état preventing the inauguration of the Government. by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in January 2023. The authorities seek to clarify whether those investigated were part of a “criminal organization” that acted “in the attempted coup d’état” to “keep the then president of the Republic in power.”
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Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes has ordered the former president to hand over his passport within 24 hours and has prohibited him from maintaining contact with other investigators, within this police operation that has taken place in a dozen states. This Thursday, the agents carried out 33 search warrants and four preventive detention orders, in addition to imposing 48 precautionary measures on the suspects.
According to the Brazilian press, former ministers and Army generals Walter Braga Netto, Augusto Heleno and Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, who were part of Bolsonaro’s cabinet (2019-2022), and former Navy commander Almir Garnier Santos have been the subject of searches. Also the former Minister of Justice Anderson Torres, who was already being investigated for the coup attack on January 8, 2023 carried out by Bolsonaro supporters, and Valdemar Costa Neto, president of the Liberal Party (PL), a party led by the former Brazilian president.
According to ‘O Globo’, the four detainees are: Filipe Martins, who was a close advisor to Bolsonaro during his mandate; Army colonels Marcelo Câmara and Bernardo Romão Corrêa Netto; and Rafael Martins, major of the Army Special Forces.
The investigation indicates that the investigated group “divided into action groups to spread” suspicions of fraud in the 2022 elections, in which Lula defeated Bolsonaro, who was seeking re-election, “even before the elections were held.” According to the Police, with this strategy they sought to “legitimize a military intervention.”
Those investigated supposedly built a narrative to sow doubts about the results of the elections through false information about the electronic ballot boxes that have been used in Brazil since 1996 and never caused problems.
Furthermore, the Police believe that there was a second core of action that “consisted of the practice of acts to subsidize the abolition of the Democratic State of Law, through a coup d’état, with the support of military personnel with the knowledge and tactics of special forces in a politically sensitive environment.”
These events culminated in the riot on January 8, 2023, when thousands of Bolsonaro’s followers invaded and destroyed the headquarters of the Presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court, in a desperate attempt to overthrow the Lula Government, which had assumed power. power a week before.
Bolsonaro is already being investigated for inciting his acolytes to take power by force and is now in the crosshairs of the authorities for allegedly being part of the coup plot.
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