MASTERMIND

Commission’s report on the January 8 attacks requests the indictment of Bolsonaro and military personnel for “criminal association”

Commission’s rapporteur also listed crimes by Anderson Torres, Mauro Cid, General Augusto Heleno and Silvinei Vasques

Translated by: Ana Paula Rocha

Brasil de Fato | São Paulo (SP) |
Jair Bolsonaro is one of the names listed in the CPMI's report to be indicted. - Douglas Magno/AFP

In the report presented on Tuesday morning (17), the rapporteur of the Mixed Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPMI, in Portuguese) investigating the criminal acts of January 8, Eliziane Gama (PSD, Maranhão state), requested the indictment of former President Jair Bolsonaro (Liberal Party). 

“It is well known that Jair Bolsonaro never was sympathetic to republican and democratic principles. Proof of this is the extensive documentation brought to the attention of this Commission and which proves these facts,” wrote the congresswoman in the report.

“As mentioned in other parts of the report, Bolsonaro livestreamed during his presidential term questioning the electronic voting system. On these occasions, he did not present any technical or factual basis. In one of these livestreams, Bolsonaro leaked information about a confidential investigation into the invasion of the Supreme Electoral Court system.”

“Leech”

 

The rapporteur said the former president was the mastermind behind the January 8 attacks. “Seen as a ‘mythical’ figure by his supporters, Jair Bolsonaro used the state apparatus to reach his main goal: to leech off Brazil’s republican institutions until their very end to remain in power in a perennial and authoritarian way.”

“Being the moral mastermind, the then president has direct responsibility for part of the attacks that targeted every relevant republican name who challenged his [Bolsonaro's] coup intentions. Public servants, journalists, businessmen, military officers and members of Brazil’s three powers: they were all attacked insistently by Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters, many of them with posts in public office and using the state apparatus to harass and attack people.”

After that, Eliziane recalled Walter Delgatti’s statements to the Commission on August 17. On the occasion, the notorious hacker said former Defense minister Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira facilitated his access to the ministry's headquarters in Brasília and to employees who were experts in information technology to try to create a false source code for electronic voting machines to fraud the 2022 presidential elections.


Walter Delgatti / Geraldo Magela/Agência Senado

Walter Delgatti Neto was supposedly introduced to Paulo Sérgio Nogueira by Jair Bolsonaro himself after a meeting at Alvorada Palace on August 10 last year. “It was a technical talk, and then the president said: ‘I don’t understand the technical issues, so I’m gonna send you to the Ministry of Defense through General Marcelo Câmara. Once there, you explain [to him], despite Marcelo Câmara's resistance to taking you [to the Ministry of Defense],” said Walter Delgatti. 

“He [Bolsonaro] told me I would save Brazil. This conversation evolved and reached the technical part. They said I would be protected and would receive a pardon from the president. With precautionary measures prohibiting me from accessing the internet, this pardon was offered.”

Eliziane Gama said Bolsonaro will be indicted for criminal association, political violence, violent abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law and coup d'état – all from the Penal Code – for intentional conduct, that is, when there is the intention to commit crimes.

Silvinei Vasques, Marília de Alencar and Anderson Torres

 

In the report, Senator Eliziane Gama states that “plenty of evidence” about Jair Bolsonaro having used the Federal Highway Police (PRF, in Portuguese) “to monitor places, particularly the Northeast region, where the then presidential candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had more votes during the first round of the 2022 elections” in a “characteristic form of political violence.”

During the second round of the 2022 elections, the PRF, under the command of Silvinei Vasques, set up 500 operations on highways, blocking them, mainly those in the Northeast region. The places where the blitzes took place were listed in a spreadsheet made by the former director of intelligence at the Ministry of Justice, Marília Ferreira de Alencar. She said to the Federal Police that she handed to the then Minister of Justice Anderson Torres a printed version of the spreadsheet with a map indicating the distribution of votes for Lula and Bolsonaro in each Brazilian city and town.


Anderson Torres / Bruno Spada/Brazil's Chamber of Deputies

Data from the Ministry of Justice indicate that, between October 28 and 30, the PRF inspected 2,185 buses in the Northeast region, 893 in the Central-West region, 632 in the South region, 571 in the Southeast region and 310 in the North region. As for the daily payments paid in the first and second electoral rounds, on October 2, 500,000 reais were invested, while on October 30 it was around 13 million reais.

For both Marília Ferreira de Alencar and Silvinei Vasques, the Commission’s rapporteur requested indictments. 

Eliziane Gama argued that Marília took a long time to act against the January 8 attack. At the time, Marília was undersecretary of intelligence at the Public Security Secretariat of the Federal District, a position she held after leaving the Ministry of Justice. The report recommends accusing Marília of criminal association, violent abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law and coup d'état. In the same way, Eliziane Gama suggested the crimes of criminal association, malfeasance, embezzlement, administrative advocacy, interfering in the competitive nature of bidding, illegal hiring and political violence.


Marília Ferreira Alencar / Rinaldo Morelli/CLDF

Anderson Torres was accused of criminal association, violent abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law and coup d'état. In addition to being “directly responsible for carrying out the blitzes in the Northeast region in the second electoral round,” Eliziane stated that, in general, “Anderson Torres subjectively adhered to the will of Jair Messias Bolsonaro in the coup attempt”.

The congresswoman also wrote that Torres “tried to co-opt criminal experts from the Federal Police to produce possible pieces of evidence against the security of electronic voting machines on the same day that Jair Bolsonaro posted content doubting the security of the electoral system, announcing that an election without a printed vote would be a fraud.” 

Other indictments

The Senator also requested Bolsonaro’s former aide Mauro Cid to be indicted for the crimes of criminal association, violent abolition of the Democratic State of Law and coup d'état, “by way of fraud, for subjectively adhering to the criminal conduct of Jair Messias Bolsonaro and other individuals around him, contributing decisively to the outcome of the events of January 8, 2023."

Luis Marcos dos Reis, another of Bolsonaro’s aides, was also the subject of an indictment request. On the day of the coup attempt, he shared “several footages of the demonstrations on the ministry terrace together with his wife and one of his children. In addition to filming, he shared the videos with some contacts listed on his cell phone. Below, there are some images extracted from the recorded videos and the conversations in which this content was shared,” states the Federal Police in the report.

Edited by: Nadini Lopes e Rodrigo Durão Coelho