Brazil’s Ex-Leader Indicted In Alleged Coup To Kill Current President
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
BRASILIA/WASHINGTON (Worthy News) – Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro, an ally of U.S. President Donald J. Trump, has been formally charged in an alleged plot to assassinate the current leader of Brazil and others.
The indictment came while Trump’s media company filed a lawsuit against one of the Brazilian Supreme Court justices who will decide the former Brazilian president’s fate.
Brazilian Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet accused Bolsonaro of consenting to a plot that included a plan to poison his successor and current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and shoot dead Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.
Justice Moraes, a foe of the former president, received the prosecution’s indictment Wednesday. The Supreme Court will now decide whether to open a case against Bolsonaro, who denies the charges, saying he is a victim of “persecution.”
Prosecutors decided to proceed with the case based on a more than 800-page federal police report released last year after a two-year investigation.
Like his friend Trump, Bolsonaro was accused of encouraging his supporters to storm his nation’s Congress, presidential palace, and Supreme Court.
The accomplices involved at this stage worked to facilitate “the acts of violence and vandalism of January 8, 2023,” after Bolsonaro lost the presidential election, prosecutors said.
“Meanwhile, the criminal organization” headed by Bolsonaro had pressured army chiefs “in favor of forceful actions in the political scene to prevent the elected president from taking office,” the statement said.
ALLEGED PLOT
Investigations also revealed an alleged plot to assassinate Lula, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, and the high-ranking judge “with the approval” of Bolsonaro.
According to the prosecutor’s statement, the conspiracy began in 2021 with “systematic attacks on the electronic voting system, through public statements and on the internet.”
Security agencies were mobilized during the second round of the presidential election in October 2022 to “prevent voters from voting for the opposition candidate,” prosecutors said.
However, in the U.S., Trump Media & Technology Group — which is majority-owned by Trump and runs his Truth Social media site — sued the Brazilian justice, Alexandre de Moraes, who they believe is biased towards Bolsonaro and others.
They accuse him of illegally censoring right-wing voices on social media, including a prominent Bolsonaro supporter.
The supporter, a Brazilian, sought political asylum in the U.S. state of Florida after Justice Moraes ordered his arrest on claims that he spread “misinformation” and threatened judges.
TRUMP MEDIA
Trump Media and Rumble accused Justice Moraes of censoring political discourse in the United States by ordering Rumble last week to remove the account of the prominent Bolsonaro ally.
The companies argued that the order against Rumble is “extraterritorial censorship” that illegally restricts their “ability to deliver First-Amendment protected content” in the United States.
Trump’s company has not been subject to Justice Moraes’s orders. Still, it argued in the lawsuit that it relied on Rumble’s technology and, therefore, could be harmed if operations were affected.
Last year, social media platform X was offline for several weeks as its billionaire CEO Elon Musk declined to block X accounts linked mainly to political supporters of Bolsonaro. Justice Moraes demanded they be taken offline because they contained “hate speech” and “targeted democratic institutions.”
He has argued that his actions are necessary to protect Brazil from Bolsonaro and his supporters’ “anti-democratic acts.”
It was unclear how or whether the later legal steps would affect the proceedings against Bolsonaro in Brazil: The civil suit has no legal standing on the justice’s actions in Brazil but seeks “an injunction” against Justice Moraes’s recent order against Rumble.
The suit also wants to prevent Justice Moraes from ordering tech giants Apple and Google to remove the Rumble application from their app stores.
FREEDOM FIGHT
Bolsonaro likened his predicament and that of his supporters to countries such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Cuba, where governments “accused opposition members of being coup plotters.”
All four of those countries are under leftist governments.
“The playbook is well-known: They fabricate vague accusations, claim to be concerned about democracy or sovereignty and persecute opponents, silence dissenting voices, and concentrate power,” Bolsonaro said.
“The world is watching, and we will continue to do our part so that everyone knows what is happening in Brazil today,” he added.
“Freedom will triumph once again!”
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