Jair Bolsonaro, allies and high-ranking military personnel indicted for attempted coup in 2022
The Federal Police (PF) has indicted the former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and 36 other people this Thursday 21st, in the investigation into a coup attempt after the 2022 elections. The list of defendants contains names that were part of the high level of the former president’s government, such as Walter Braga Netto (Defense and Civil Home), Anderson Torres (Justice) and Augusto Heleno (GSI)as well as the former president’s trusted allies, such as Valdemaro Costa Netopresident of the PL, e Philip Martins, former international advisor.
Bolsonaro was indicted for violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, coup d’état and criminal organization. The three crimes attributed by the company to the former president could lead to 28 years in prison.
The conspiracy against the results of the 2022 polls included several fronts, defined by the PF as “nuclei”. Understanding the Federal Police investigation in five points.
Origin of the investigation and Mauro Cid’s complaint
The investigation into a coup attempt arose from a federal police investigation into the activities of “digital militias.” This investigation had several fronts, including the “attack on institutions”, the “attacks on opponents” of the Bolsonaro government, the “attempt to abolish the democratic rule of law” and the “use of the state structure to obtain advantages” .
The “obtaining benefits” aspect has been broken down into other investigations, including that into the existence of fraud on the vaccination cards of Jair Bolsonaro and his daughter Laura. As part of this investigation, in which he signed a plea agreement, Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid was detained. From this statement emerged elements that fueled the investigation into the “attempt to abolish the democratic rule of law”.
The elements that supported the Tempus Veritatis operation, launched by the PF on 8 February, were cited in Mauro Cid’s statement. The lieutenant colonel’s testimony lists for the first time the details of the drafting of a decree that would impose a state of exception in the country, as well as mentioning the key role of General Walter Braga Netto in a coup movement.
However, subsequent discoveries by the Federal Police, such as the participation of the CID in the plan to kill Minister Alexandre de Moraes, the Federal Supreme Court (STF), President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and Deputy Geraldo Alckmin (PSB ), were not mentioned in the lieutenant colonel’s statement. The PF only detected the plan by searching Cid’s cell phone and suspected that the soldier was playing a “double game” to protect allies and called for the plea deal to be quashed. In the hearing held on Thursday, the STF decided to maintain Mauro Cid’s plea agreement.
Strategy based on the “cores” of the action
The federal police investigation found that the conspiracy suspects worked on six fronts. The investigation defined these fronts as “cores”. Each of the fronts, linked to the other nuclei of the organization, aimed to prepare the conditions for the coup to take place.
The PF has identified the following nuclei:
- of “disinformation”, responsible for spreading false information about the country’s electoral system, in order to discredit the electoral result;
- “incitement” to other soldiers to join the coup plot, using pressure and harassment against resisting officers;
- the “legal”, responsible for substantiating, with legal devices, a decree that would impose a state of exception in the country;
- “support for coup actions”, responsible for planning and maintaining anti-democratic demonstrations in front of the barracks;
- of “parallel intelligence”, dedicated to collecting information that could help Jair Bolsonaro carry out the coup;
- a front dedicated to articulation between conspiratorial groups, made up of high-ranking officers who used this influence to incite the coup.
The PF uses the nomenclature of “nuclei” for the purposes of organizational analysis. Therefore, even if the suspects were not called by these terms, the investigation gathered evidence that each defendant acted in a manner directed towards specific objectives.
From the division into nuclei, the role of Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid in the articulation of the coup stands out. The PF ascertained that the CID belonged to five of the six identified nuclei: disinformation, incitement, legal support, logistics and parallel intelligence.
Meeting at Braga Netto’s house
According to the investigation that supported the Controcoup operation, launched on Tuesday 19th, two days before the conclusion of the investigations into the attempted coup, General Walter Braga Netto, strongman of the Bolsonaro government, was a key to the institutional system’s plan to break down . The former minister became aware of a plan to execute the authorities and he would be the general coordinator of an “Institutional Crisis Management Office” if the coup occurred.
According to the PF, General Mário Fernandes is the author of the “Punhal Verde e Amarelo” plan, which contained the details to execute, in December 2022, the minister Alexandre de Moraes and the winning ticket of the presidential elections of that year, formed by Lula and Alckmin. The action involved operational support from the “black boys”, as the soldiers of the Brazilian army’s special forces are known.
On November 12 there was a meeting at Braga Netto’s house in which the “operational planning of the activities of the ‘black boys'” was presented and approved. The meeting was attended by lieutenant colonels Mauro Cid and Hélio Ferreira Lima and major Rafael Martins de Oliveira.
In addition to the document with the plan to kill Moraes, Lula and Alckmin, the PF found in the archives of Mário Fernandes a draft decree establishing a “crisis office”, which will be launched after the authorities’ executions. Braga Netto would be the person in charge of this office, according to the seized bill of exchange.
Mário Fernandes was the executive secretary of the General Secretariat of the Presidency. The pasta is known as the “cuisine of the Palácio do Planalto”, given its proximity to the President of the Republic. The executive secretary, in practice, is the “number 2” of a ministry. Fernandes also took over the General Secretariat on an interim basis during the Bolsonaro government. Braga Netto, in addition to his roles in the Civil and Defense House portfolios, was the PL’s vice-presidential candidate in the 2022 elections.
The date of the coup was discussed
An excerpt from an audio message from Mário Fernandes to Mauro Cid indicates that Jair Bolsonaro not only learned of the coup plan, but also suggested the best date for the action – one day before or after the president-elect’s graduation, an act which precedes the installation of the new representative. While Lula’s graduation took place on December 12, 2023, the PT member’s inauguration took place on January 1, 2024.
“During the conversation I had with the president (Jair Bolsonaro), he said that the 12th, because of the ‘vagrant’ diploma, would not be a restriction, that this can happen, that any action we take can happen until December 31st and all,” Fernandes told the CID. “But, f…, then I said, oh, president, but as soon as possible, we have already lost so many opportunities.”
The electoral defeat motivated the coup plot, but the PF identified a call by Jair Bolsonaro for an institutional break before the elections. At a ministerial meeting on July 5, 2022, the then president called for a “reaction” to alleged fraud in the electoral system. “If we react after the elections, there will be chaos in Brazil, it will turn into a big guerrilla war, into a bonfire in Brazil. Now, does anyone doubt that the left, as it is doing, will win the elections?”, said the then Chief of Executive.
The then president asked the ministers present to act quickly. “Everyone here, like everyone out there, has something to lose,” Bolsonaro said, referring to members of the administration who were not present at the meeting.
Relationship with vaccine card fraud
The accusation of attempted coup is the third to hit Jair Bolsonaro. The first investigation to involve the former president was for fraud on his vaccination cards. Other names indicted on that occasion are repeated in the report concluded on Thursday on the coup plot: in addition to Jair Bolsonaro, former presidential aides Mauro Cid and Marcelo Costa Câmara were also implicated in the conclusion of Operation Venire.
On that occasion the PF had referred to the institutional breakdown. Venire’s final report is signed by delegate Fábio Alvarez Shor, who linked Bolsonaro’s vaccination card fraud to a coup attempt.
According to the delegate, “the former president and his allies may have issued falsified vaccination cards so that, after the first coup attempt, they could have the necessary documents available to comply with any legal requirements for entry and the stay abroad, pending the completion of documents related to the new coup attempt which broke out on 8 January 2023″.
Source: Terra
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