Brazil’s federal police say they have arrested five people over an attempted coup in late 2022, in which the five allegedly planned to kill Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva shortly before he took office as president.
One of the accused men is a federal police officer, Wladimir Matos Soares, and the other four are army officers trained in special operations, including retired Brig. Gen. Mário Fernandes, who served as interim general secretary in then-Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s cabinet from October 2020 until December 2022.
The plotters allegedly intended to assassinate Lula, a 79-year-old socialist; his running mate, Geraldo Alckmin; and a Brazilian supreme court judge, Alexandre de Moraes.
‘Broader Plan’ for Coup
“These actions, peaking between November and December 2022, were part of a broader plan to carry out a coup d’état,” de Moraes said.According to information about the police investigation in the judge’s order, seen by The Associated Press, detectives found evidence that Fernandes outlined a plan to kill Lula and Alckmin and visited protest camps outside military bases, including at the army headquarters in Brasília, the capital of Brazil.
According to the police document, Fernandes also considered different scenarios, including using explosives or poison at an official event, to assassinate de Moraes.
‘It’s Not A Crime’
Flavio Bolsonaro, a senator and the former president’s son, said, “As repugnant as it is to think about killing someone, it’s not a crime.”The federal police said they had carried out three search warrants, confiscated the suspects’ passports, and prevented them from contacting associates. None of the five has so far been charged with any offenses.
Lula, who was president between 2003 and 2011, returned for a third term, after narrowly defeating the conservative incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in 2022.
Jair Bolsonaro cast doubt on the election results, never conceded defeat, and left for the United States days before Lula was inaugurated on Jan. 1, 2023.
In the aftermath of the October 2022 election, Bolsonaro supporters staged nationwide protests in which they challenged the results, blocked roads, and camped outside military bases.
The federal police claim that there is evidence that Fernandes gave instructions and financial support to the protesters.
On Jan. 8, 2023, thousands of demonstrators stormed government buildings in Brasília, seeking to oust Lula.
But they were prevented by the armed forces, who remained loyal to the new president.
The man who died in the Nov. 13 explosion, Francisco Wanderley Luiz, 59, lost a race for city council in Rio do Sul, in the southern state of Santa Catarina, in 2020.
The director of the federal police, Andrei Passos Rodrigues, said they were treating last week’s incident as terrorism.
A former labor leader who helped establish the left-wing Workers’ Party, Lula was elected to Brazil’s Congress in 1986.
He was convicted of corruption and money laundering in 2018 and sentenced to 12 years in jail.
Lula was released after only 18 months behind bars when the Supreme Federal Court ruled that the judge in his case, Sergio Moro, was biased.
Bolsonaro had often accused the Brazilian supreme court of being biased, and many of the former president’s supporters saw de Moraes as their biggest enemy.
De Moraes led a five-year probe into allegedly fake news and threats against supreme court justices, and as a result, some of Bolsonaro’s allies and supporters have been banned from social media and even jailed.
De Moraes also presided over the nation’s top electoral court when it later ruled Bolsonaro ineligible for office until 2030, ruling that he had abused his power and cast unfounded doubts on the validity of the 2022 election result.
