The Brazilian Prosecutor’s Office has requested this Friday the Supreme Court to investigate the former president Jair Bolsonaro for his possible participation as intellectual author of the assaults on Sunday from his followers to the headquarters of the Presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court of the South American country.
The Attorney General’s Office has requested that the far-right leader be included in the list of those investigated for having incited anti-democratic acts with which his most radical followers intended to promote a coup against the president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
According to the Prosecutor’s request, “Bolsonaro would have publicly incited the practice of crime” by posting a video on January 10 again questioning the regularity of the 2022 presidential election in which he was defeated by Lula.
The video to which the Prosecutor’s Office refers was published two days after the incidents on Sunday, but, given the negative impact, he quickly removed it from his Facebook account. In the controversial video, a voter assures that Lula was not chosen by the people but by the electoral court.
The Deputy Attorney General of the Republic, Carlos Frederico Santos, who coordinates the strategic group that investigates the anti-democratic attacks, alleges that, although the video was published two days after the “episodes of violence and vandalism, possible illegal conduct has to be investigated“. “The existence of an evidentiary connection between the facts contained in this petition and the objective of the investigation, which is broader in scope, is not denied. For this reason, the global investigation of the facts practiced before and after January 8, 2023 by the accused is justified,” he argues.
In the same petition, signed by various prosecutors but without the signature of the Attorney General of the Republic, Augusto Aras, the body requests the highest court to order Facebook to take action necessary to preserve the video published and later deleted by Bolsonaro.
According to a statement from the Prosecutor’s Office, the Attorney General’s Office has so far requested the Supreme Court seven investigations into attacks and acts of violence of the most radical Bolsonaristas, who do not recognize Lula’s electoral victory and defend a coup. These investigations are divided between those that try to identify the executors, financiers, masterminds and instigators of the assaults, as well as the public authorities that were conspiring.
In such requests, the Prosecutor’s Office accuses those involved of crimes of terrorism, criminal association, violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, coup d’état, threat and persecution.
The authorities have so far around 1,800 people have been arrested accused of being part of the Bolsonaro horde that invaded and destroyed the headquarters of the three powers for nearly four hours in an attempt to overthrow Lula.
Bolsonaro is being investigated in four other criminal proceedings opened by the Supreme Court, but all of them are in the initial phase and no charges have been filed against the former president, who has been in the United States since December 30.
Source: Lasexta
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