Judicial documents show the leaders refused to participate and warned Jair Bolsonaro they would arrest him if he tried it.

SAO PAULO (AP) — Two top Brazilian military leaders declared to police that former President Jair Bolsonaro presented them a plan for him to remain in power after the 2022 election he lost, but both refused and warned him they would arrest him if he tried it, according to judicial documents released Friday.

The testimonies of Bolsonaro’s former Army and Air Force commanders to police, and released by the Supreme Court, include the first direct mentions of the right-wing leader as actively participating in a conspiracy to ignore the results of the October 2022 election won by his rival, current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The statements by military commanders during Bolsonaro’s term add to his legal woes as prosecutors seek to find links between the far-right leader and the Jan. 8, 2023 riots that trashed government buildings in the capital Brasilia one week after Lula’s inauguration.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, a frequent target of Bolsonaro and the chairman of the investigation, authorized the release of the documents.

  • honey_im_meat_grinding@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    1·
    8 months ago

    Reminder that US state agencies helped Bolsonaro

    In March 2020, the Intercept reported that Brazilian prosecutors had secretly collaborated with the US Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation in a manner “that may have violated international legal treaties and Brazilian law”. The Brazilian Ministry of Justice had not been informed; making this collaboration illegal. They also found that money paid by Brazilian companies in the US were funnelled back into Brazil; chief prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol said he would use part of this sum to set up an “independent fund to fight corruption”. This attempt was then deemed unconstitutional by Brazil’s Supreme Court. It was reported that Mr. Dallagnol had called Lula da Silva’s arrest “a gift from the CIA”. Leslie Backschies, the head of the US FBI’s international corruption unit, alluded to this incident when discussing the sensitivity of anti-corruption investigations in a 2019 interview with AP news saying “We saw presidents toppled in Brazil”.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Car_Wash#Leaked_conversations