Archive – Former Brazilian Defense Minister Walter Braga Netto – Europa Press/Contact/Leco Viana – Archive
The investigation points to retired general Walter Braga Netto for providing resources to the conspirators
MADRID 14 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS)
The Brazilian Police have arrested the former Minister of Defense and former candidate for the Vice President of the country, retired General Walter Braga Netto, within an investigation into a plot organized by former President Jair Bolsonaro to orchestrate a coup d’état in 2022.
Security forces arrested Braga Netto, who served as Bolsonaro’s 2022 running mate, at his home in Rio de Janeiro early Saturday morning after returning to the city from a trip.
The retired general has been detained on charges of obstruction of justice according to the preventive detention order signed by Brazilian Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes. In his order, published by the newspaper ‘Estadao’ on its website, the magistrate points out that the investigation, at this time, has presented “conclusive evidence” that the retired general was “providing the necessary resources” to facilitate this coup.
De Moraes also assures that he has “robust evidence” that, throughout the month of December 2022, Braga Metto actively participated in an attempt to “pressure the commanders of the Air Force and the Army to adhere to the plan that “aimed at the abolition of the democratic rule of law.”
What’s more, the investigation also indicates that Braga Netto would have become part, once the coup was consummated, of a “cabinet” responsible for advising Bolsonaro and creating “an intelligence and counterintelligence network” to control the consequences of the coup. and “act in the information field to obtain support from national and international public opinion.”
His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. His client has been taken into custody of the Eastern Military Command in Vila Militar, west of Rio.
Braga Netto, the first four-star general detained in the country’s democratic era, is among dozens of people whom police accused in November of conspiring to keep Bolsonaro in power after his 2022 election defeat.
It is worth remembering that, on January 8, 2023, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed government buildings in the capital, Brasilia, amid claims that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s victory had been fraudulent.
While Bolsonaro denies taking part in the riots, authorities have been investigating the right-wing leader and members of his government ever since for alleged efforts to overturn the will of the Brazilian people.