Jair Bolsonaro and 36 other people are accused of planning a coup d’état aimed at keeping Bolsonaro in power after his 2022 election loss.
In the nearly 900-page long report that has now been published, it is also stated that Bolsonaro must have had knowledge of a planned assassination of the then newly elected president Lula da Silva.
The report lists eight main pieces of evidence. One point is that Bolsonaro is said to have called a meeting with three commanders of Brazil’s armed forces to present his plans to overturn the election results.
The army and air force commanders refused. The former commander of the navy, Almir Garnier, gave his support for the plan, according to the police report. He is one of the people accused of crimes in the investigation.
The report states that the planned coup d’état could not be carried out thanks to the army’s supreme commander’s opposition to Bolsonaro.
Phone calls are said to reveal plans
Through telephone conversations with people involved in the coup plans and meetings at the president’s residence, the police also say they have found evidence that Bolsonaro was aware of plans to assassinate Lula da Silva and newly elected vice president Geraldo Alckmin.
Bolsonaro “planned, acted and was directly aware of the actions of the criminal organization with the aim of carrying out a coup d’état and eliminating the democratic rule of law,” the document says, according to the AP.
Former ministers are accused of crimes
The former Minister of Defense and Minister of Justice are some of the people accused of crimes. The suspicions concern, among other things, the storming of government buildings in Brasilia in 2023.
Jair Bolsonaro denies the accusations. The report has been handed over to the Supreme Court. The Attorney General must decide whether to officially indict Bolsonaro or close the investigation.