By Jack Guy, Vasco Cotovio, Hira Humayun and Shasta Darlington, CNN
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is being investigated as part of an investigation into an alleged coup attempt to keep him in power, according to one of his former aides.
Four other people were arrested and 33 are seeking arrest warrants executed Thursday as part of the investigation, Brazil’s federal police said in a statement.
“On Thursday (2/8), the [Brazilian] Federal Police introduced Operation Tempus Veritatis to investigate the criminal organization that attempted to stage a coup d’état and abolish the democratic rule of law, in order to gain political advantages by keeping the President. of the Republic at that time in power,” it reads.
A further 48 precautionary measures were also enforced, including a ban on contact with other people under investigation; a ban on leaving the country, with an order to surrender passports within 24 hours; and a ban on exercising public functions, said police.
Police did not call any of the other people under investigation, but Fabio Wajngarten, a lawyer representing Bolsonaro, showed that the former president was among them in a post on X.
Bolsonaro will surrender his passport “in compliance with today’s decisions,” Wajngarten added.
Bolsonaro has been arrested or charged.
Two advisers to former President Bolsonaro were among those arrested, CNN partner CNN Brasil reported, citing law enforcement sources. The arrests are also widely reported in the Brazilian media.
Several former ministers who served in his government are also under investigation, CNN Brasil reported.
The police declined to comment on Bolsonaro’s involvement or the arrests of his aides.
However, he said the investigation exposed evidence of coordinated efforts to construct a narrative that fraud was committed during the 2022 presidential election “to enable and legitimize the military’s intervention. “
One of the “linchpins” of those efforts alleges that Brazil’s e-voting formula is vulnerable to manipulation, police said.
Bolsonaro frequently criticized Brazil’s electronic voting system, despite having been elected as a federal lawmaker five times and once as president in elections using that same system.
His criticism of the electronic voting system began before he was elected president, but reached a crescendo in the lead up to the 2022 election, which Bolsonaro lost to current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
One point in the alleged plot concerned attempts to plan a coup involving the military, police added.
“The facts investigated constitute, in theory, crimes of criminal organization, violent abolition of the democratic rule of law and coup d’état,” it continues.
President Lula said he finds it “very difficult” to comment on an ongoing police operation, but said he hoped “that no excesses have been committed and that the full rigour of the law is applied” in a message on X.
In an interview with Brazilian radio Itatiaia on Thursday, Lula also said he hoped Bolsonaro would gain advantages from the “presumption of innocence” that had not been granted to him in the past.
This is a reference to Lula’s historic conviction on corruption charges, which was later thrown out.
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