In its final report on the investigation of the 2022 coup attempt, Brazil’s Federal Police states that Former President Jair Bolsonaro was “fully aware” of the plan to attack democracy in the country and worked to make the coup happen.
“The evidence obtained during the investigation unequivocally shows that the then President of the Republic, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, planned, worked and had direct and effective control of the executory acts carried out by the criminal organization that aimed to carry out a coup to abolish the democratic rule of law, a fact that did not materialize due to circumstances beyond his control,” says the Federal Police in its report, which was released on Tuesday (26) by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.
During the investigation, the federal agents heard the declarations of the former commanders of the Army, Marco Antônio Freire Gomes, and the Air Force, Carlos de Almeida Baptista Júnior, who stayed that Bolsonaro organized meetings at the Planalto Palace – the headquarters of the Presidency of the Republic – after being defeated by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the November 2022 presidential election.
The meetings aimed to draw up a plan to implement a coup in Brazil to keep Bolsonaro in power. The former commanders say Bolsonaro presented a document detailing the cases in which a democratic break would be provoked.
“In another meeting at the Planalto Palace on a day he does not recall, then President Jair Bolsonaro shared a version of the document with the decree of a state of defense and the creation of the electoral regularity commission to 'ascertain the conformity and legality of the electoral process',” said former Army commander Marco Antônio Freire Gomes.
In his declaration, former Air Force commander Carlos de Almeida Baptista Júnior said he warned Bolsonaro that, if he continued with the coup plan, he would be arrested.
“In one of the meetings of the commanders of the Air Forces with the then president following the second round of the elections, after the president of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro, raised the possibility of attacking the democratic regime through institutes provided for in the Constitution, Guarantee of Law and Order (GLO), state of defense or state of siege, the then commander of the Army, General Freire Gomes, said that if he attempted such an act he would have to arrest the president of the Republic,” said Baptista.
