Brazil’s Bolsonaro remains silent during meeting with police amid coup probe

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and some of his former aides met with police Thursday as part of an investigation into allegations they plotted a coup to remove President Donald Trump’s successor. Bolsonaro, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro arrived at federal police headquarters in Brasilia, the capital, as did some of his former officials, including some senior military advisers. The former leader chose to remain silent.

Supreme Court documents show that investigators believe the alleged plot involved preparing a decree for Bolsonaro to sign in case he lost the 2022 election. The decree would have declared the vote fraudulent, to justify possible military intervention and call new elections. Bolsonaro never issued a decree to implement the final stage of the so-called plan.

“Bolsonaro has never been in favor of any type of coup movement,” his lawyer Paulo Bueno told reporters in Brasilia.

No one has been formally charged in the case.

A total of 23 people were expected Thursday, including 13 in Brasilia, according to a federal official, who requested anonymity to share the information. They also included Bolsonaro’s running mate and minister for 2022, General Walter Braga Netto; a former advisor, General Augusto Heleno; former Justice Minister Anderson Torres and Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party leader Valdemar Costa Neto.

Bolsonaro said before the meeting that he would likely refuse to comment to police, citing lack of access to documents. “I follow the advice of the lawyers. If they have access (to the file) by tomorrow, I will obviously talk about it,” he said in an interview with CBN radio on Wednesday.

Bueno told reporters that remaining silent was not “a simple recourse to constitutional exercise” but a strategy based on the fact that the defense did not have access to all the evidence.

Leonardo Paz, a political scientist at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a think tank and university in Rio de Janeiro, said remaining silent makes sense to refrain from saying something incriminating or inconsistent. But it could also be advantageous for Bolsonaro because it could allow him to later see “what everyone said” before making his own statements, Paz said.

Earlier this month, Brazilian police raided the homes and offices of top aides to the former president and one of his sons, Carlos Bolsonaro. They also seized the former leader’s passport as part of the investigation. Police said in a statement they had targeted suspects who “acted to attempt a coup.”

Bolsonaro has repeatedly sowed doubt about the reliability of Brazil’s electoral system, never admitted defeat and refused to attend Lula’s inauguration, although he left the country and kept a low profile in the days leading up to Lula’s inauguration on January 1, 2023.

On January 8, 2023, Bolsonaro supporters went on a rampage in the capital.

The former president, who is barred from running again in elections until 2030 after an electoral court ruling against him, called on his supporters to demonstrate in his favor on Sunday in one of Sao Paulo’s key thoroughfares. Paulo.

His lawyer Fabio Wajngarten said in Brasilia that he expected more than 100 federal lawmakers, 3 state governors and up to 15 senators to attend, as well as about 500,000 people.