Federal Police: Bolsonaro left Brazil to avoid potential arrest
The Federal Police concluded that former President Jair Bolsonaro left Brazil in late 2022 to avoid potential arrest and to monitor the outcome of the January 8, 2023, coup attempts from abroad.
In the final days of his mandate in December 2022, Bolsonaro traveled to the United States, returning only in March 2023.
The details are outlined in a Federal Police report indicting Bolsonaro and 36 others on charges of attempting a coup d'état and the violent abolition of democratic rule of law. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the rapporteur for the coup investigation, lifted the document's secrecy on Tuesday (Nov. 26).
Investigators revealed in the report that an escape plan, devised in 2021, outlined steps for the former president to leave Brazil “if his attack on the judiciary and the democratic regime faced setbacks that could jeopardize his freedom.”
During the investigation, police discovered a PowerPoint presentation on the computer of Mauro Cid, Bolsonaro's former aide and one of the whistleblowers. The document outlined strategies for establishing an escape and evasion support network, to be employed if Bolsonaro chose to defy Supreme Court decisions. The plan also included the use of weapons to facilitate the escape.
According to the investigations, the 2021 escape plan was adapted after the group failed to implement a coup d'état in 2022.
“The escape plan was adapted and used at the end of 2022, when the criminal organization was unsuccessful in carrying out the coup d'état,” the report points out.
The police concluded, "After failing to secure the Armed Forces' support for an institutional rupture, Jair Bolsonaro left the country to evade potential arrest and await the outcome of the January 8, 2023 coup attempts."
The defense
Agência Brasil is attempting to contact Bolsonaro's defense and is open to including its statement in the article. At a press conference on Monday (25), the former president declared that he "never discussed a coup with anyone," adding that all actions taken during his administration were within "the four corners of the Constitution."
