BRASILIA, (Reuters) – Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro plotted a coup to overturn the 2022 election along with dozens of ex-ministers and senior aides, federal police said in a formal accusation filed today with the country’s Supreme Court.
The final police report caps a nearly two-year investigation into Bolsonaro’s role in the election-denying movement that culminated in riots by his supporters that swept the capital Brasilia in January 2023, just a week after his rival President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office.
Many protesters at the time said they wanted to create chaos to justify a military coup, which they considered imminent. Earlier this week, police arrested five conspirators suspected of planning to assassinate Lula before he took office.
Investigators found evidence Bolsonaro knew of that alleged plan, according to a police source familiar with the probe.
Bolsonaro said on social media that investigators and the Supreme Court judge overseeing the case had been “creative” and done “everything the law does not say,” adding that he would have to look closer at the formal police accusation. His lawyer told Reuters he would wait to see the report before commenting.
The formal police accusations against Bolsonaro are a fresh blow to his plan to run for president in 2026. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s recent victory had buoyed Bolsonaro allies trying to overturn a court decision that has blocked him from public office for attacking the legitimacy of the 2022 vote.
With the police report now filed with the Supreme Court, the country’s prosecutor general will decide whether to press charges against Bolsonaro and 36 others accused of criminal organization to violently overthrow the democratic order.
Among the accused are two of Bolsonaro’s former defense ministers, including his 2022 running mate, retired General Walter Braga Netto; his former national security adviser, retired General Augusto Heleno; former navy commander Almir Garnier Santos; and former Justice Minister Anderson Torres.
Lawmaker Alexandre Ramagem, who ran the Brazilian spy agency ABIN, and the head of Bolsonaro’s right-wing Liberal Party, Valdemar Costa Neto, were also among the accused named in a federal police statement.
Lawyers for Heleno and Torres and aides to Ramagem and Braga Netto declined to comment. Representatives for Garnier Santos and Costa Neto did not immediately respond to questions.
Brazil’s Defense Ministry, army and navy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
ARRESTS THIS WEEK
Police on Tuesday arrested five people suspected of involvement in the assassination plot targeting Lula, then president-elect, and his running mate Geraldo Alckmin, days before they took office.
Lula, speaking at the presidential palace on Thursday, said he was lucky to be alive. “The attempt to poison me and Alckmin didn’t work and here we are,” he said.
Tuesday’s arrests included retired Brigadier General Mario Fernandes, who was a deputy minister in Bolsonaro’s cabinet. Police said they found in his possession a document outlining the plan that had been printed at the presidential palace.
A police source said investigators had confirmed Bolsonaro was at the presidential palace when the document was printed, and they had identified conversations between his associates suggesting the former president was aware of the plot.
Three active duty officers arrested on Tuesday had special forces training. Bolsonaro, a hard-right politician who had been an army captain, filled the top tiers of his government with military officers.
Bolsonaro never recognized his October 2022 electoral defeat and he left Brazil days before Lula’s inauguration for Florida.
He eventually returned to Brazil and surrendered his passport to police investigating his role in the January 2023 capital riots, when supporters stormed and vandalized the Supreme Court, Congress and the executive presidential palace.
Earlier this year, federal police finished separate criminal probes of Bolsonaro and his associates, formally accusing them of tampering with COVID-19 vaccination cards while in office and of embezzling jewelry gifted by the Saudi government. He denied wrongdoing in both cases.
A person close to Brazil’s Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet said he is likely to consider the result of all three probes targeting the former president before making a decision on presenting charges, without any clear deadline.
