Braga Netto and Heleno remain silent in their statement to the PF about an alleged coup attempt

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Jair Bolsonaro’s former Defense Minister General Walter Braga Netto and former Minister of the Institutional Security Cabinet (GSI) Augusto Heleno remained silent in their statement given to the Federal Police (PF) this Thursday. They spent about an hour at the Superintendency building, in Brasília, and left at around 3:15 pm. Former president Bolsonaro and 22 other people, including former ministers and military personnel, also attended the hearings called as part of an investigation investigating an attempted coup d’état to keep Bolsonaro in power.

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Braga Netto’s defense said that he “exercised his right to have absolute and full access to the entire investigation so that he can provide the necessary clarifications.”

Retired General Paulo Sergio Nogueira, former Minister of Defense, was also silent, according to the defense. “General Paulo Sérgio was silent today; but as soon as we have proper access to the files he will be available for any clarifications”, wrote lawyer Andrew Fernandes.

Another general who did not respond to the PF’s questions was the former minister of the General Secretariat of the Presidency Mário Fernandes.

Former Navy commander, Admiral Almir Garnier also opted for the right to silence. His lawyer, Demóstenes Torres, explained that the defense “did not have enough time” to read the case files – around 4,000 pages.

The same allegation was made by the defense of Lieutenant Colonel Ronald Ferreira Júnior. Lawyer Lisandro Sampaio stated that he has not yet had access to the entire file and that the soldier “will be able to speak” when that happens. The defender requested access to the content of the evidence collected by the PF.

Bolsonaro gives testimony to the PF in an investigation into an attempted coup this Thursday (22)

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Today’s testimonies were the targets of search and seizure warrants from Operation Tempus Veritatis, launched two weeks ago by order of Federal Supreme Court Minister Alexandre de Moraes. The investigation is based in part on the testimony of Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, Bolsonaro’s former aide-de-camp.

The depositions were scheduled to take place simultaneously, starting at 2:30 pm. Fourteen of them will be held in Brasília, four in Rio de Janeiro, two in São Paulo, one in Paraná, one in Minas Gerais, one in Mato Grosso do Sul and one in Espírito Santo.

Check out the suspicions that weigh against each one below:

Former Minister of Defense and the Civil House, and candidate for vice-president on Bolsonaro’s re-election ticket, the retired general would have acted in incitement against members of the Armed Forces who did not join the coup attempt. Messages show that he ordered criticism of the then commanders of the Army, Marco Antônio Freire Gomes, and the Air Force, Carlos de Almeida Baptista Júnior.

To GLOBO, on the day of the PF operation, he denied any irregularities:

— The persecution of Bolsonaro’s people continues. It’s all an invention, a dream.

The former Minister of the Institutional Security Cabinet stated, in a ministerial meeting held in July 2022, that if “the tables have to be turned, it is before the elections” and that it was necessary to act “against certain institutions and against certain people”. He also reported having discussed a plan to infiltrate agents from the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin) in electoral campaigns. He has not yet commented on the investigations.

3. Paulo Sérgio Nogueira

According to the PF, the former Defense Minister had manipulated the ministry’s report on the electoral system, postponing its release after no vulnerabilities were identified in the electronic voting machines. At a ministerial meeting, he said that he was “on the line of contact with the enemy” in the TSE commission and that the group would be “for the English to see”. Paulo Sérgio’s defense stated that the former minister “always acted correctly, is innocent and trusts in Justice”.

In a meeting with Bolsonaro, the then Navy commander would have been the only head of a Force to support the coup plan to keep Bolsonaro in power. According to the PF, he was part of a group of officers who “would have used the high military rank they held to influence and encourage support for other groups of action, through the endorsement of actions and measures to be adopted, for the consummation of the coup d’état”. In a message sent to interlocutors on the day of the operation, he stated: “I ask everyone to pray for Brazil and for me. We continue together in faith, always seeking to do what is right, in the name of Jesus.”

5. Ronald Ferreira Junior

The Army lieutenant colonel would have worked on drafting a decree that would form the basis for a coup d’état. According to the PF, investigations show that he was in possession of documents that would complement the alleged coup draft. He has not yet commented on the investigations.

Reserve general and former executive secretary of the General Secretariat of the Presidency, he defended at the ministerial meeting the carrying out of action before the election with the aim of avoiding “fraud”, even if there was “a small risk of disturbing the country “. He has not yet commented on the investigations.

Valdemar and former advisor speak

Unlike the military, the president of the PL, Valdemar Costa Neto, and the former advisor for International Affairs to the Presidency Filipe Martins, who is in prison, did not remain silent during their statements to the PF. Valdemar’s defense stated that the politician “answered all the questions asked of him”, but did not detail the content.

Filipe Martins, in turn, did not answer all the questions that were asked, but provided some clarifications, according to sources linked to the investigation. Bolsonaro’s former advisor denied that he wrote or helped in writing the so-called “coup draft”, and said that he never delivered any document that would determine a coup d’état or the illegal arrest of authorities.

According to the investigation, the former advisor for international affairs was responsible for delivering the draft to Bolsonaro at Palácio da Alvorada. The former president asked for some corrections, Martins did so and presented the text to Bolsonaro again, according to Cid. The military also claimed that Filipe Martins participated in a meeting with Bolsonaro and the then commanders of the three Armed Forces and explained each item in the document to the military.

Messages seized by the PF show that Martins even commented to Cid about the seizure of the document at the home of former Justice Minister Anderson Torres, in January last year. The former advisor sent the lieutenant colonel an excerpt about what Torres’ defense claimed, and wrote to Cid: “His lawyer’s line.”

Martins also denied his participation in any meeting whose agenda was related to the coup and said that he was not absent from the country at the end of the last government. The police suspect that he left Brazil together with Bolsonaro in December 2022, as Martins’ name appears in a file on Cid’s computer with the names of all the people who traveled with the former president to the United States that year. month, but there was no record of the former advisor’s entry and exit in the migration control systems.

The PF used this and the argument that his location was uncertain to request his arrest. In a statement, Martins’ defense, made up of lawyers João Vinícius Manssur, William Iliadis Janssen and Ricardo Scheffer, states that the former advisor’s testimony “was clear and objective”.

“Filipe is calm, but unhappy with his arrest, which he considers hasty and illegal. We are now awaiting the decision regarding the request to revoke preventive detention, pointing out that this should only persist in very exceptional cases, when freedom itself is a risk, which demonstrated that this was not the case for Filipe”, the lawyers defended in a note.