Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, adviser and one of the men close to the former president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, would have sought legal advice for a military intervention, which would have prevented the transfer of power after the presidential elections last October, in which Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was victorious. The alleged evidence was found on Cid’s mobile phone, the Federal Police said.
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The Brazilian Police assures that they found plans for a military coup on the phone of one of the men closest to former President Jair Bolsonaro.
The authorities point to alleged plans that had been drawn up to keep the far-right leader in power after the presidential elections last October, in which he lost re-election to current president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The alleged evidence was found on the mobile phone of Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid – currently detained on charges that he would have falsified Bolsonaro’s vaccination certificate against Covid-19 – who was one of the former president’s personal assistants and who continued as his adviser after he left the Executive.
A Federal Police report indicates that, according to an analysis of the seized device, Cid had “compiled documents with the aim of obtaining ‘legal and judicial’ support for the execution of a coup d’état.”
Jair Bolsonaro, Mauro Cid — always around with cell phones — and, not to mention, Colonel Lawand, or the deputy chief of the Army Staff, who committed a coup without shame. What lambanças did the order assistant keep? No @UOLNews https://t.co/kpdX1NtBia
— Reinaldo Azevedo (@reinaldoazevedo) June 16, 2023
The authorities also accuse Cid of studying “the possibility of using the Armed Forces, on an exceptional basis, to ensure the independent and harmonious functioning of the Powers of the Union, by determination of the President of the Republic.”
In this sense, the Police points out that the inquiries made by Cid could have formed the basis of a step-by-step guide, which is also found on his phone, on a military intervention to block the transfer of power.
However, it is not clear who wrote the document and if it came into the hands of Bolsonaro, a former army captain who narrowly lost the election to his leftist rival.
For now, Cid’s lawyer, Bernardo Fenelon, indicated in a statement that his client would only defend himself against these accusations before the investigators.
Roadmap to block Lula’s possession?
Among the material found on Cid’s phone was a possible roadmap to block the inauguration of the current president, who was inaugurated on January 1.
To justify such an institutional break, the document accused the judiciary and the media of unconstitutional actions to favor Lula in the election.
The document called for the nomination of an “intervener” with power over the Armed Forces and all of Brazil’s federal public security agencies. In the midst of an alleged attempt to dispossess the main authorities of the country, the “offending” judges in the Supreme Court and the Federal Electoral Tribunal would be investigated, dismissed and replaced, indicated the alleged guide found by the authorities.
Subsequently, according to the denounced plans, the reformed Electoral Tribunal would oversee new elections to be held once the military decided that constitutional order had been restored.
The Brazilian Army responded that any “personal opinion and comment does not represent the thought of the chain of command, nor the official position of the Force.”
“Any individual conduct deemed irregular will be dealt with in court,” he stressed.
These reports were leaked by the local news magazine ‘Veja’, prompting Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes to publicly reveal the police report and supporting documents.
Moraes leads several investigations into the conduct of Bolsonaro and his supporters before, during and after the narrowly won election of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
