Brazil police formally accuse Bolsonaro of 2022 coup plot, say sources

Brazil’s Federal Police on Thursday presented a formal accusation against former President Jair Bolsonaro in their investigation of an alleged coup conspiracy after he lost the 2022 election, said police sources.

The final police report caps nearly two years of speculation about 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 Inácio Lula da Silva took office. Many protesters said they wanted to create chaos to justify a military coup.

Some of the alleged conspirators had a plan to assassinate Lula before he took office, said police. Investigators found evidence that Bolsonaro was aware of that alleged plan, said one police source.

Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoing and called the investigation political persecution. His lawyer told Reuters he would wait to see the report before commenting.

Formal police accusations would be a fresh blow to Bolsonaro’s plans to run for president in 2026. US President-elect Donald Trump’s recent victory had buoyed Bolsonaro’s allies trying to overturn a court decision that has blocked him from public office for attacking the legitimacy of the 2022 vote.

Once police present their report to Brazil's Supreme Court, the office of the prosecutor-general will decide whether to press charges against Bolsonaro and any former aides implicated.

The police investigation will point to Bolsonaro as a key player in the conspiracy and seek to hold him criminally responsible for an attempt to violently overthrow democratic rule, one police source told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The source said senior members of Bolsonaro’s government would also be implicated, including his 2022 running mate, retired General Walter Braga Netto, who was defence minister, and retired General Augusto Heleno, who was national security adviser, along with some 40 other suspects.

Heleno’s lawyer declined to comment, and a representative for Braga Netto did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

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 had served as a deputy minister in Bolsonaro’s cabinet. Police said they found in his possession a document outlining the plan that had been printed out at the presidential palace.

A police source said investigators had confirmed that 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 recognised his October 2022 electoral defeat and left Brazil for Florida days before Lula’s inauguration.

He eventually returned to Brazil and surrendered his passport to police investigating his role in the capital riots, when supporters stormed and vandalised 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 jewellery gifted by the Saudi government. He denied wrongdoing in both cases.

A person close to Brazil’s prosecutor general, Paulo Gonet, said he was likely to consider the result of all three probes targeting the former president before making a decision on presenting charges, without any clear deadline. DM