Brazil Supreme Court to Probe Bolsonaro’s Role in Jan. 8 Breach of Government Buildings

Supporters of Brazilian former President Jair Bolsonaro clash with the police during a demonstration outside the Planalto Palace in Brasilia on Jan. 8, 2023. Evaristo Sa/AFP via Getty Images

Brazil’s Supreme Court decided on Jan. 13 to include former President Jair Bolsonaro in an investigation into the Jan. 8 storming of government buildings by rioters in Brasilia.

“Public figures who continue to cowardly conspire against democracy trying to establish a state of exception will be held accountable,” Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who agreed to the request from federal prosecutors to have Bolsonaro be included in the probe, said in a statement.

The Supreme Court had already ordered Bolsonaro’s former justice minister, Anderson Torres, to be arrested for allegedly allowing the protests to take place in Brasilia after he assumed responsibility for Brasilia’s public security.

Prosecutors will investigate Bolsonaro for possible “instigation and intellectual authorship of the anti-democratic acts that resulted in vandalism and violence in Brasilia last Sunday,” the prosecutor general’s office said in an online statement.

Supporters of Brazilian former President Jair Bolsonaro hold a demonstration at the Esplanada dos Ministerios in Brasilia on Jan. 8, 2023. Evaristo Sa/AFP via Getty Images

Demonstrators stormed the presidential palace, Congress, and Supreme Court on Jan. 8 amid ongoing mass protests that had persisted in the country since the outcome of the national election on Oct. 30, 2022, which gave the victory to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was sworn in on Jan. 1 as president for the third time.

Bolsonaro’s supporters largely doubt the authenticity of the results and had been demanding that the military step in to intervene.

Aerial view of supporters of Jair Bolsonaro during a demonstration against election results in front of the Eastern Military Command building in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Nov. 2, 2022. Wagner Meier/Getty Images

Following the Jan. 8 riots, the former Brazilian leader issued a statement denouncing the damage and vandalism.

“Peaceful demonstrations, in the form of the law, are part of democracy,” Bolsonaro wrote, per translations of Twitter posts he shared late on Jan. 8. “However, depredations and invasions of public buildings as occurred today, as well as those practiced by the left in 2013 and 2017, escape the rule. ... Throughout my presidency, I have always been within the four lines of the Constitution, respecting and defending the laws, democracy, transparency and our sacred freedom.”

Bolsonaro is currently in Florida, having left Brazil less than two days ahead of Lula’s Jan. 1 inauguration. Torres also is in Florida. He has said he plans to return to Brazil to turn himself in.

Then-Brazilian Justice Minister Anderson Torres speaks during a ceremony on the International Day Against Corruption at Planalto Palace in Brasilia on Dec. 9, 2021. Evaristo Sa/AFP via Getty Images

Justice Minister Flávio Dino told a news conference he would wait until this week to reevaluate Torres’s case. Dino noted that he had made no requests to the United States regarding Bolsonaro.

On Jan. 12, police found a draft decree at Torres’s house that appeared to be a proposal to interfere in the result of the election. Torres claimed the document was, among others, in a stack that was being thrown out. He said they were “leaked” to Folha de S.Paulo newspaper in his absence to create a “false narrative.”

The arrest warrant against Torres was issued by de Moraes, who temporarily removed Torres from his post hours after the Jan. 8 riots.

Reuters contributed to this report.