By Eduardo Davis |
Brasilia (EFE).- Jair Bolsonaro’s defense reiterated this Friday that the former Brazilian president “never” participated in coup attempts, but suspicions continue to grow with compromising documents revealed by the Supreme Court.
The situation of the far-right leader seemed to get complicated the day before, when Veja magazine revealed some messages found by the Police on the phone of Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, former Bolsonaro aide-de-camp and arrested for alleged fraud with anti-Covid vaccines.
The content of the messages, clearly pro-coup, was confirmed this Friday by the Supreme Court, which lifted the secrecy of justice that weighed on those contents.
In some, before last October’s elections, in which Bolsonaro was defeated by the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, there is talk of “a constitutional order distorted by higher courts” that could justify the declaration of a state of siege. .
One of the messages goes further and looks like some kind of draft of a decree that would call for military intervention. “To ensure the necessary restoration of the Democratic State of Law” and “based on express provisions of the Constitution, a state of siege is declared,” says the text found on the former deputy’s phone.
A similar document had been found in the house of former Justice Minister Anderson Torres, also close to Bolsonaro and who is in house arrest for his alleged participation in the plot that led to the events of January 8, when a horde Bolsonarista assaulted the three powers of the Nation.
Bolsonaro denies and the electoral justice is preparing to judge him
Bolsonaro’s defense spoke before the disclosure of those official documents and referred only to what was published by Veja, later confirmed by those texts.
According to the lawyers, these messages “prove, once again,” that Bolsonaro “never participated in any conversation about a coup d’état.”
They maintain that the aide-de-camp, “due to the function performed, received all the demands” that “should reach the President of the Republic” and that his telephone was like “a simple mailbox that recorded the most diverse complaints.”
However, the magistrate Alexandre de Moraes, responsible in the Supreme Court for an investigation into the January riot, authorized the Police this Friday to take another statement from Bolsonaro about the coup plot, about which he was already questioned on April 26.
The new suspicions arise at a time when the electoral Justice is preparing to judge Bolsonaro for alleged abuses of political and economic power during the electoral campaign.
The trial is scheduled for next Thursday and, if these abuses are proven, the far-right leader may lose all his political rights for a period of eight years.
A bizarre complaint that also complicates
Added to this is a police operation carried out this Thursday against Bolsonaro senator Marcos do Val, whose residences and offices were raided in search of documents that would also be related to the preparations for the January coup.
Do Val is part of a parliamentary commission that has been investigating the coup for a month and will meet again next Tuesday, when the opposition has announced that it will demand that he be prohibited from continuing to participate.
Last February, Do Val denounced a bizarre plot for a coup, but which was interpreted as an attempt to disqualify Judge De Moraes from being responsible for the investigation.
Among various contradictory versions, he basically said that, before Lula’s inauguration, Bolsonaro and a far-right activist asked him to request a meeting with De Moraes, also president of the electoral Justice, and record the conversation without the judge noticing.
The intention was, according to Do Val, for De Moraes to accept some alleged irregularity to favor Lula in the elections, which would serve as an excuse to invalidate the elections and keep Bolsonaro in power.
Since then, Do Val maintains that the magistrate cannot continue leading the investigation into the events of January because, in his opinion, he was “warned” that there were plans for a coup and “was ignored” in the face of that information.