Berliner Tageblatt - Brazil's Bolsonaro 'participated' in 2022 coup plot against Lula: police

Bolsonaro was also "fully aware" of an alleged plan by elite soldiers to assassinate Lula, his vice president and a Supreme Court judge, said the report, which has been handed to Brazil's attorney general.

Attorney general Paulo Gonet is examining these explosive allegations to see if evidence supports charges being laid against Bolsonaro and 36 other people named as co-conspirators.

The 884-page report drawn up after a nearly two-year police investigation urges Gonet to indict Bolsonaro and the others for planning an attempted coup and seeking to "violently overthrow the democratic state."

The document details alleged collusion between Bolsonaro and some of his officials, including members of his military brass, to claim fraud in 2022 elections won by Lula and to use decrees to sideline the Supreme Court.

"The then-President of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro, actively participated in the creation of the coup plan, being directly involved in the drafting of documents and strategies to remain in power, even after the electoral defeat," the report said.

"He was one of the central figures in the meetings to define the steps and actions to be taken," it alleged.

- Bolsonaro says innocent -

The report was made public by the Supreme Court judge overseeing the case, Alexandre de Moraes -- one of the targets of the alleged assassination plot.

That alleged plot, which police said was codenamed "Green and Yellow Dagger," led to the arrests last week of four elite soldiers and a police officer. They were suspected of planning to poison Lula in 2022.

Bolsonaro, president between 2019 and 2022, has denied the coup allegation and says he is the victim of "persecution."

"The term 'coup d'etat' has never been part of my lexicon," he told a news conference on Monday.

The 69-year-old former army captain lost October 2022 elections to Lula, a left-winger who was previously president between 2003 and 2010.

Multiple investigations have been launched in Brazil over suspected plots against Lula and his administration.

An insurrection that took place in Brasilia on January 8, 2023, when thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed the capital's presidential palace, the Congress building and the Supreme Court, was the most striking of those seen publicly.

Investigations continue into that upheaval, which echoed scenes from the United States two years earlier, when supporters of Donald Trump protesting President Joe Biden's election win attacked the US Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021.

Among those named as co-conspirators in the alleged coup were: Bolsonaro's defense minister, General Walter Braga Netto; the head of Bolsonaro's conservative Liberal Party, Valdemar Costa Neto; Ailton Goncalves Moraes Barros, a retired military man already indicted in two other investigations; Colonel Alexandre Castilho Bitencourt da Silva; and Admiral Almir Garnier Santos.

Bolsonaro has already been declared ineligible to hold public office until 2030 for having made unsubstantiated claims of fraud in Brazil's electronic voting system.

He has been prohibited from leaving the country while a vast probe named "Tempus Veritatis" ("the time of truth" in Latin) continues. The investigation has already swept up several of Bolsonaro's closest aides.

Bolsonaro hopes to overturn the ineligibility ruling and attempt a comeback in 2026 presidential elections.

M.Furrer--BTB