As expected, Jair Bolsonaro (PL) remained silent in his statement to the Federal Police (PF), this Thursday afternoon (22), which lasted around half an hour. Upon leaving the corporation building, the former president’s lawyer, Paulo Cunha Bueno, said that Bolsonaro remained silent because the defense did not have access to the investigation files.
Continues after advertising
Bueno also called the investigation “semi-secret.” “The only reason why Bolsonaro used silence was the fact that he was responding today to a semi-secret investigation,” he told the press.
Previously, the former president’s defense requested access to the entire content of the investigation so that Bolsonaro could speak to the PF. Minister Alexandre de Moraes, however, disagreed, stating that Bolsonaro’s lawyers had already been allowed access to the evidence attached to the case.
“Therefore, the investigated party is not justified in stating that full access to all the steps taken and evidence included in the records was not guaranteed, nor is it up to him to choose the date and time of his interrogation. In view of the above, under the terms of article 21, § 1 of the Internal Regulations of the Federal Supreme Court, I reject the requests.”
Other deponents
In addition to Bolsonaro, the Federal Police (PF) collected the testimony of 10 others being investigated, this Thursday (22), for attempting a coup d’état to keep the former president in power.
Testimonies are expected from former ministers of the Institutional Security Office (GSI), General Augusto Heleno; from the Civil House, General Walter Souza Braga Netto; of Justice and Public Security, Anderson Torres; and Defense, General Paulo Sérgio Nogueira.
Tércio Arnaud Tomaz and retired colonel Marcelo Costa Câmara, former advisors to the Presidency of the Republic, were also summoned; Mário Fernandes, former executive secretary at the General Secretariat; Cleverson Ney Magalhães, Army colonel and former officer of the Land Operations Command; Almir Garnier, former Navy commander; and Valdemar Costa Neto, president of PL.
They are all mentioned in the PF report sent to Moraes, which supported Operation Tempus Veritatis on the coup attempt. The purpose of simultaneous depositions is to prevent the combination of versions.
According to the PF, those being investigated are structured into groups with different purposes, including organizing coup camps, preparing the act of January 8, carrying out illegal espionage against STF ministers and disseminating false information. The facts investigated may lead to charges of criminal organization, violent abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law and coup d’état.
Editing: Nicolau Soares