Bolsonaro’s allies are about to launch a military campaign in 2022, a police report said

Brazil was hit by a military coup and the assassination of a high court judge just days before President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office in January 2023, a state police report said.

A report on an alleged plot to help democrat Jair Bolsonaro cling to power was made public on Tuesday, and it paints a shocking picture of how the world’s largest democracy slipped back into totalitarian rule.

The 884-page document describes a complex, three-year plot that investigators believe was designed to pave the way for a military coup by using social media to spread false claims of election fraud that the plotters hoped would justify the intervention in front of the public. .

Related: Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has been charged with plotting a coup

Police said the plot was due to reach its “peak” on December 15, 2022 – two days before Lula is due to be sworn in after beating Bolsonaro in October’s presidential election.

The conspirators, including several military officers, were said to be hoping that on that day Bolsonaro would sign a “coup decree” that would allow a military takeover.

On December 16, 2022, “after the end of the coup”, the report says that two of Bolsonaro’s allies – former defense minister Gen Walter Braga Netto and former institutional security minister Gen Augusto Heleno – will be installed. of the “problem management” cabinet.

A federal police report – reviewed by the Guardian – says the only reason Bolsonaro did not sign the law banning the transfer of power is because the conspirators failed to get enough support from Brazil’s top military.

“The evidence [gathered] … it shows that the commander of the navy, Adm. Almir Garnier [Santos]and the minister of defence, [Gen] Paul Sérgio [Nogueira de Oliveira]clinging to the coup attempt. However, i [army] the commander [Marco Antônio] Freire Gomes and [Carlos de Almeida] “Baptista Júnior of the Air Force put himself at risk of resisting any kind of measures that would cause institutional disintegration in the country,” the report said.

The state police said that the only thing that prevented the coup attempt from happening was the “intransigent position” of Freire Gomes, Baptista Junior and most of the top soldiers. It says that those people “have always been faithful to the principles governing the rule of law in democracy and have not given in to the pressure to overthrow the government”.

Bolsonaro last week was formally charged with being one of 37 people involved in a criminal conspiracy designed to destroy Brazil’s democratic system through a coup d’état. He denied those allegations on Tuesday, calling them crazy.

“I have never discussed a coup with anyone,” he told reporters in the capital, Brasília. “If someone had come and talked to me about the coup, I would have asked them: ‘What about the next day? What would the world do?’”

However, a state police report said: “The evidence obtained during the investigation shows without a doubt that the former president of the time Jair Messias Bolsonaro planned, took action and was able to directly control the murderous actions carried out by a criminal organization that wanted to overthrow the military regime and dismantle the law, something that did not happen due to circumstances beyond his control.”

General Braga Netto last week denied the ongoing coup plot, calling the allegations “stupid and absurd”. Gen Heleno has not commented on the police allegations but last year he publicly denied that he was involved in coup plotting.

Gen Nogueira de Oliveira and Adm Almir Garnier Santos have not publicly commented on the claims.

The police report reveals that fashion designers close to Bolsonaro have put emergency plans in place in the event of an alleged failure. A laptop taken from Lt Col Mauro Cid, Bolsonaro’s former aide during the 2019-2023 presidency, allegedly contained a PowerPoint presentation detailing Bolsonaro’s military escape plan “in case the coup attempt fails”.

“This plan involves the use of weapons to ensure that the former president escapes,” added the report about the alleged “bombing” plan.

The police investigation also contains shocking details of how close the conspirators may have come to kidnapping or killing Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes.

On December 15, as conspirators unsuccessfully sought Bolsonaro to sign a decree authorizing military intervention, the report states that at least six members of the pro-Bolsonaro cell “placed themselves in strategic positions near the official minister’s house and the supreme court to preside.” pull out the action”. However, at the last minute the operation to “hide” Moraes “neutralized” was called off, said the police, partly because of the refusal of the military officer to support the plot.

The police said they also found plans to kill Lula and his deputy, Geraldo Alckmin, in Lula’s case with poison or toxic chemicals. The report says Bolsonaro has “full knowledge” of the “operational planning” of such criminal activities.

How did it start?

Brazil’s leftist president, João Goulart, was ousted in a coup in April 1964. General Humberto Castelo Branco became leader, political parties were banned, and the country plunged into military rule for 21 years.

Repression intensified under Castello Branco’s staunch follower, Artur da Costa e Silva, who took power in 1967. He was responsible for the infamous law called AI-5 that gave him various dictatorial powers and kicked the so-called “anos de chumbo. ” (the lead years), a dark period of dictatorship and violence that would continue until 1974.

What happened during the dictatorship?

Supporters of Brazil’s 1964-1985 military regime – including Jair Bolsonaro – credit it with bringing security and stability to the South American country and creating a decade-long economic “miracle”.

It also pushed ahead with many of Pharaoh’s infrastructure projects including the unfinished Trans-Amazonian highway and an eight-kilometer bridge across Rio’s port of Guanabara.

But this regime, although less violent than that of Argentina and Chile, was also guilty of killing or killing hundreds of its opponents and imprisoning thousands more. Among those arrested and tortured was Brazil’s first female president, Dilma Rousseff, who later became a revolutionary.

And it was a period of intense testing. Some of Brazil’s most popular artists – including Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque and Caetano Veloso – went into exile in Europe, writing songs about their forced departure.

How did it end?

Political exiles began to return to Brazil in 1979 after the passing of an amnesty law that began to pave the way for the return of democracy.

But the pro-democracy movement “Diretas Já” (Direct Elections Now!) took a major step in 1984 with a series of large and historic street rallies in cities such as Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Belo Horizonte.

Civil rule returned the following year and a new constitution was established in 1988. The following year Brazil held its first direct presidential election in nearly three decades.

This week’s revelations shocked and appalled many citizens in a country that emerged from just 21 years of military dictatorship in 1985. Many of those accused of being part of the 2022 pro-Bolsonaro coup plot were part of that 1964-85 regime. In the 1970s, Gen Heleno was an aide to General Sylvio Frota, a hard-line member of the military regime that was involved in the 1964 coup that overthrew Brazil’s incumbent president, João Goulart.

“How safe is our democracy?” asked the headline of an opinion piece in one of Brazil’s largest newspapers, Folha de São Paulo, on Tuesday evening.