Bolsonaro remains silent in his statement before Justice, which accuses him of having plotted a coup d'état

Silence. Total silence. Jair Bolsonaro, former president of Brazil, chose this Thursday not to open his mouth in his statement before Justice, which accuses him of having plotted a coup d'état to prevent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from assuming the Presidency in 2023.

“The president has already left, he remained silent as the defense anticipated,” said Paulo Cunha, Bolsonaro's lawyer, who was advised not to answer the questions..

Cunha alleges that the defense did not have access to all the elements of the investigation, such as access to the plea agreement of Army Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, a close collaborator of Bolsonaro during his Presidency and today a huge headache for the former president. having accepted a plea agreement. “President Bolsonaro has never sympathized with any type of coup movement,” Cunha added.

Bolsonaro appeared at the headquarters of the Federal Police in Brasilia 11 minutes before scheduled to give a statement within the framework of the investigation known as Tempus Veritatis, which attempts to determine what happened in the last months of 2022 in the Government that he then commanded. conservative hard right politician. After only 15 minutes before the judge, the former president retired.

Bolsonaro “does not fear anything because he has done nothing,” his lawyer insisted, although the investigation led by Alexandre de Moraes, judge of the Supreme Federal Court (STF), points in another direction.

Research underway

The morning of Thursday, February 8, 2024 marked a before and after for the man who governed Brazil between 2019 and 2023. The Federal Police entered his vacation home in the paradise of Angra dos Reis, a couple of hours from Rio de Janeiro, and asked for his passport.. Bolsonaro did not have it with him, they gave him 24 hours to deliver it. The former president was prohibited from leaving the country and he and his accomplices are accused of having formed a criminal organization, attempting the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law and planning a coup d'état in the final weeks of 2022.

The operation targets Bolsonaro, the military and former ministers of his Administration. In total, 33 search and seizure warrants and four preventive detention warrants were issued.. This Thursday, the Brazilian Justice took 23 simultaneous statements in seven different states: 14 in Brasilia, four in Rio de Janeiro, two in São Paulo, one in Paraná, one in Minas Gerais, one in Mato Grosso do Sul and one in Espírito Santo. Among the deponents were four ministers of Bolsonaro's Government.

The STF took the step after an investigation reflected in 135 pages in which it is revealed that the then president sought to remain in power despite having lost the second electoral round of October 2022 to Lula. Eight days after Lula's inauguration, on January 8, 2023, Bolsonaro hordes invaded the Plaza de los Tres Poderes in Brasilia and destroyed the Planalto Palace, the Congress and the STF headquarters.

The Federal Police showed up at the summer house and seized the mobile phone of Tercio Arnaud Thomaz, one of Bolsonaro's advisors.

Bolsonaro, 68, is prohibited from communicating with other people who are also the target of the operation. De Moraes, the super judge who was key to stopping Bolsonaro's para-institutional impulses during his mandate, is the one who triggered the police operation based on the investigation.

Bolsonaro presents himself as a victim of a conspiracy. “I left the Government more than a year ago and I continue to suffer relentless persecution,” the former president told Folha de São Paulo two weeks ago.

Throughout this week, Bolsonaro's lawyers warned that the former president would not testify until he had full access to the evidence in the case.. Bolsonaro and his defense tried to obtain permission from the STF not to testify, but De Moraes denied the request.

The former president, 68, called for a demonstration in the center of Sao Paulo this Sunday. The objective is to show to the outside, but also to the inside of his party, that he still has enough popular support to be a decisive factor of power in Brazilian politics.

Legal experts cited by Folha de São Paulo point out that Bolsonaro is playing with fire and risks preventive detention by calling the event.