Rampage in Brasilia | Brazil’s Supreme Court includes ex-President Bolsonaro in probe

(Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro) Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, whose relatives have already been implicated, is now himself directly targeted by justice for his role in the ransacking of national institutions in Brasilia.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes announced on Friday that he was including, as requested by the General Prosecutor’s Office, the far-right former head of state in his investigation to uncover the possible instigators of the January 8 violence in the Brazilian capital.

Mr. Bolsonaro, narrowly beaten by the left-wing candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva for the October presidential election, “made a public incitement to the execution of a crime” by broadcasting on social networks a video “highlighting causes the regularity of the presidential election of 2022”, explained the prosecution in a press release.

This video was published two days after the invasion of the headquarters of the presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court by thousands of bolsonarists, then deleted, recalled the prosecution. But it could, according to him, provide “a link of proof” justifying “a global investigation into the acts carried out before and after January 8, 2023” by Mr. Bolsonaro.

The former president “never had the slightest connection or participation with these movements”, his lawyers said in a statement sent to AFP, attributing the violence in Brasilia to “infiltrated” elements.

Mr. Bolsonaro, who has been in the United States since the end of December, had already been singled out on Friday for lavish spending during his mandate, such as the 20,000 euros (about C$29,000) paid in one go at a modest restaurant in the north from Brazil or the 10,000 euros (C$14,500) in a bakery the day after her son’s wedding.

Account statements for the presidential credit card over his four years in office (2019-2022) have been published on an official website of the Lula government, which has begun to lift a secrecy imposed for 100 years by his predecessor on thousands of official documents.

Draft decree

The opening of an investigation targeting Mr. Bolsonaro follows another revelation already linked to the remake of the storming of the American Capitol on January 6, 2021, and which implicates the former Minister of Justice, Anderson Torres, in whose house was found a draft decree which could have allowed the cancellation of the election of Lula as president.

This very compromising document revealed Thursday evening by the daily Folha de S. Paulo was found during searches at the home of this former minister, who is the subject of an arrest warrant for alleged “collusion” with the perpetrators of the violence from Brasília.

“We will wait for him to show up until Monday. If this is not the case, we will launch the extradition request procedure next week, ”announced Flavio Dino, Minister of Justice of Lula, in office since 1^er January.

Mr. Torres has repeatedly maintained his innocence. He is in the United States and has promised to return to Brazil to surrender to the authorities, without giving a specific date.

The three-page document found at his home called for the federal government to take control of the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE), which oversees the smooth running of the ballot, “to ensure the preservation and restoration of transparency, and to approve the regularity of the electoral process for the presidential election of 2022”.

A measure considered unconstitutional by many jurists. In practice, the intention would have been to annul Lula’s election.

The presidential decree – which never saw the light of day – provided for the creation of an “electoral regulation commission” to replace the TSE, headed by a majority of members from the Ministry of Defense (8 out of 17).

The document is not dated, but the name of Jair Bolsonaro is at the end, on a space provided for his signature.

” Rebellion ”

“While 33 million people suffered from hunger, they were preparing a coup,” left-wing senator Randolfe Rodrigues, leader of the Lula government’s parliamentary bloc in the upper house, tweeted on Friday.

“It shows that what we saw on January 8 was not an isolated act. (The draft decree) is one of the links in a putschist chain,” Flavio Dino had already declared on Thursday evening.

Federal police told AFP they could not comment on an ongoing investigation.

Mr Torres said on Twitter on Thursday evening that this draft was “probably in a pile of documents supposed to be destroyed in due course”, and claimed that its disclosure was taken out of context.

The former minister had held the position of head of security for the Federal District of Brasilia since January 2, but had gone on vacation shortly after.