On 19 November Brazil’s federal police (PF) arrested military officers suspected of participating in a plot in 2022 that could have involved assassinating President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, and supreme court (STF) justice Alexandre de Moraes.
Analysis:
These latest arrests mark a continuation of the PF’s investigations into possible anti-democratic acts, such as an alleged conspiracy by allies of far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2023) to launch a military coup and overturn his 2022 election defeat. Under his presidency, Bolsonaro sought to expand the military’s influence in civilian government, and it has long been suspected that Brazil’s armed forces had personnel with radical right-wing sympathies among its ranks. Although Bolsonaro himself has not been implicated in this alleged plot, the PF probe could pile more pressure on his inner circle. Police suspect that some Bolsonaro allies might have been aware of the plans, such as his former aide-de-camp, Lieutenant-colonel Mauro Cid, and his former chief of staff (2020-2021), defence minister (2021-2022), and running mate in the 2022 presidential race, General Walter Braga Netto.
- The army officers arrested yesterday were Brigadier General Mário Fernandes, Majors Rodrigo Bezerra de Azevedo and Rafael Martins de Oliveira, and Lieutenant-colonel Hélio Ferreira Lima. The PF also arrested a member from its own ranks, Wladimir Matos Soares, who is suspected of providing the army officers with information about Lula’s security detail.
- Among this list of detained suspects, national media reports highlight that Fernandes has the closest ties to the previous Bolsonaro administration, having served as a presidential secretary from 2021-2023.
- Police investigators believe that Ferreira Lima and Martins de Oliveira held a meeting at Braga Netto’s home in November 2022, in which the plot could have been discussed. The PF also found exchanges of messages via messaging apps between Cid and some of the officers which suggested they were planning the logistics for some kind of operation, with aliases and codewords based on countries competing in the 2022 football World Cup.
- The police believes that, in their messages, the officers were discussing the possibility of using explosives or poison to execute De Moraes, while the alleged plan to kill Lula could have involved poisoning him during one of his frequent hospital appointments.
Looking Ahead: Cid was questioned again by PF investigators, who are reportedly in the final stage of their probe into the alleged military coup conspiracy.