Federal Police: Bolsonaro discussed, altered draft outlining coup
In the decision authorizing operation Tempus Veritatis, launched Thursday (Feb. 8) by the Federal Police, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes highlights an excerpt from a police report according to which former President Jair Bolsonaro received a draft decree from a direct adviser “to carry out a coup d’état.”
Elsewhere, the report, cited directly by Justice Moraes, points to meetings with high-ranking members of the military, both active and retired, regarding operational aspects of the coup. The police also mention assemblies at the Alvorada Palace, the presidential residence, attended by Bolsonaro, which included discussions about the military’s adherence to the plot for a coup d’état.
The federal investigators have identified a total of six groups active in the attempted putsch and the attack on the democratic rule of law, each with its own goal: disinformation and attacks on the electoral system; incitement to a coup among the military; legal action; operational support; parallel intelligence; and high-ranking officers who legitimized the efforts.
Warrants
On Thursday, the Federal Police served a total of 48 warrants, four of them for arrest. Among those investigated are former Institutional Security Cabinet head General Augusto Heleno Ribeiro Pereira, former Chief of Staff General Walter Souza Braga Netto, and former Defense Minister General Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira.
Also targeted in the operation were former Justice and Public Security Minister Anderson Torres and former Special Adviser to the President for International Affairs Filipe Martins, who was arrested during a raid in Paraná state. Another target is the president of the Liberal Party, Valdemar Costa Neto. A search and seizure order was carried out at the party’s headquarters in Brasília.
All the measures authorized by Justice Moraes were endorsed by Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet, who stated that the people involved, as reported by the police, “aimed in practice to reverse the result of the 2022 presidential elections in order to prevent the elected candidate from taking office, thus keeping former President Jair Messias Bolsonaro in power.”
The draft
The draft decree, aimed at “carrying out a coup d’état,” was delivered to the former president in 2022 by Filipe Martins, his adviser for international affairs at the time, who was arrested Thursday, as well as by lawyer Amauri Feres Saad, named as the mastermind behind the text.
According to the police report, the draft sought the arrest of Supreme Court Justices Alexandre de Moraes and Gilmar Mendes, as well as the arrest of Senate head Rodrigo Pacheco.
The document also called for new elections to be held, which was regarded as evidence of fraud.
The police claim that Bolsonaro asked for changes to the document, crossing out the names of Mendes and Pacheco. At one point, the federal agents state that Justice Moraes “was monitored by the investigated, which indicates that the efforts linked to the attempted coup d’état and abolition of the democratic rule of law were being carried out.”
In the investigations, the police mention that Martins embarked for the US together with Bolsonaro on December 30, 2022, on the presidential plane, without going through immigration procedures. He is also said to have returned to the country months later without registration, “which may indicate he fled the country to avoid criminal liability,” the police report reads.
The meeting
One of the crucial events named in the probes was a meeting called by Bolsonaro with the top leaders of the federal government, held on July 5, 2022. At the gathering, the ex-president is said to have asked those present to use their positions to disseminate false information involving election fraud.
A video recording the meeting was found on one of the computers of Bolsonaro’s former aide Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, who signed a plea bargain deal with the law enforcement after facing preventive arrest as part of the crackdown surrounding the January 8 riots.
“Guys, losing an election is no problem at all. What we cannot lose is democracy in a rigged election!” Bolsonaro reportedly declared on the occasion.
After this meeting, a sequence of events took place with a view to planning the coup, as described in messages from Mauro Cid’s cell phones, in which the aide-de-camp takes on the task of spearheading the dissemination of attacks on the Electoral Court.
Defeat
After Bolsonaro’s defeat in the election, the planning phase for more effective action by army troops is believed to have begun. Colonel Bernardo Romão Correia Neto, for instance, is said to have organized a meeting in Brasília on November 28 with officers who agreed to join the planning for a coup.
Correia Neto then sent Cid the draft of a document called “Letter to the Commander of the Army of Senior Active Officers of the Brazilian Army,” reported to have been written at the meeting to put pressure on then Army Commander General Freire Gomes to join the movement.
Correia Neto was subjected to a preventive arrest this Thursday, on orders from Justice Moraes.
Agência Brasil has tried to reach the defense lawyers of the people mentioned in the report.
