Bolsonaro aide sought authorized guidance for Brazil coup -law enforcement report

By Ricardo Brito

BRASILIA (Reuters) -One particular of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s closest aides sought legal suggestions for a army intervention that would have prevented the handover of electric power adhering to final October’s election, federal law enforcement reported on Friday.

Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid was just one of Bolsonaro’s personal assistants who stayed on as an aide soon after he stepped down. He is under arrest in excess of allegations that he faked Bolsonaro’s COVID-19 vaccination card.

In accordance to an investigation of Cid’s seized mobile cellphone, a federal law enforcement report mentioned he experienced “gathered paperwork with the goal of acquiring ‘legal and judicial’ assistance for the execution of a coup d’état.”

Cid’s attorney Bernardo Fenelon reported in a statement that his customer would only defend himself to investigators.

Federal police also accused Cid of searching into “the risk of working with the armed forces, on an outstanding basis, to make sure the independent and harmonious operating of the Powers of the Union, by way of determination of the President of the Republic.”

Cid’s analysis may well have fashioned the foundation of a stage-by-move guideline, also observed on his phone, into how a possible coup could participate in out, law enforcement explained.

Choose UNSEALED Police REPORT

That arranging document was initially claimed by information magazine Veja, prompting Supreme Courtroom Justice Alexandre de Moraes to unseal the police report and supporting files.

Moraes is major various investigations into Bolsonaro and his supporters’ perform right before, through and immediately after the election narrowly received by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

It is unclear no matter if the content found on Cid’s phone achieved Bolsonaro.

The former president’s attorney Fabio Wajngarten posted a statement to social media stating the Veja tale “proved, once once more, that President Bolsonaro under no circumstances participated in any conversation about a probable coup d’etat.”

The content identified on Cid’s cellular phone provides to evidence that customers of Bolsonaro’s inner circle were being on the lookout at techniques to block Lula from having business office and strip the powers of Brazil’s prime federal courts.

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In January, police found a draft presidential decree built to meddle with the results of the election in the house of previous Justice Minister Anderson Torres.

Among the the materials uncovered on Cid’s cell phone was a probable road map for blocking Lula’s Jan. 1 inauguration, initially claimed by Veja. To justify these types of an institutional rupture, the document accused the judiciary and media of unconstitutional steps to favor Lula in the election.

The document named for the nomination of an “intervener” with electric power about the armed forces and all of Brazil’s federal community safety businesses. Offending justices in the Supreme Court docket and the federal electoral courtroom would be investigated, taken out and changed, it explained.

The revamped electoral court would then oversee new elections to choose area as soon as the army had determined the constitutional purchase experienced been reestablished.

Brazil’s army said any “thoughts and private feedback do not characterize the imagining of the … chain of command, nor the official positioning of the Power.”

“Any unique carry out judged to be irregular will be dealt with in courtroom,” it extra.

(Reporting by Ricardo Brito in Brasilia Writing and more reporting by Gabriel Stargardter and Brad Haynes Modifying by David Gregorio, Leslie Adler and Grant McCool)