Senior Brazil military figures backed plot to seize power after Bolsonaro’s election defeat, federal documents allege

Brazil came within a whisker of a far-right military coup and the assassination of a supreme court judge just days before President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took power in January 2023, a federal police report has claimed.

The report about the alleged plot to help the rightwing populist Jair Bolsonaro cling to power was made public on Tuesday, and paints a chilling portrait of how close one of the world’s largest democracies came to being plunged back into authoritarian rule.

Five arrested in investigation of claims Abin monitored and harassed top public figures and politicians

Brazil’s intelligence agency was illegally weaponised during Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right administration to monitor and harass some of the country’s most important politicians, journalists, judges and environmental officials, federal police have alleged.

Five people were arrested on Thursday as part of a long-running investigation into suspicions that during Bolsonaro’s 2019-22 government the Agência Brasileira de Inteligência (Abin) was used to spy on the president’s political foes.

Former president allegedly inserted false information into public health database to make it appear he received Covid vaccine

Brazil’s federal police have accused Jair Bolsonaro of criminal association and falsifying his own Covid-19 vaccination data, marking the first indictment for the embattled far-right leader with others potentially in store.

The supreme court on Tuesday released the police’s indictment which alleges Bolsonaro and 16 others inserted false information into the public health database to make it appear as though the former president, his 12-year-old daughter and several others in his circle had received the Covid-19 vaccine.

Testimony contained in documents released by supreme court details alleged plot to overturn result of 2022 Brazilian election

Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro presented top military officials with a plan to carry out a coup d’état after his defeat in the October 2022 election, two former commanders have told the police, according to newly released judicial documents.

In testimonies made public on Friday, former army commander Marco Antônio Freire Gomes and former air force commander Carlos Baptista Júnior said Bolsonaro held several meetings in December 2022 in which he presented a document that would have served as the basis to overturn the results of the election, which he lost to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Ex-president’s family retreat targeted early on Monday as nine search warrants executed in other parts of the country

Brazilian police have raided the holiday home of former president Jair Bolsonaro as part of an expanding investigation into an illegal spying racket that allegedly existed during his far-right government.

Federal police officers reportedly arrived at Bolsonaro’s family retreat in Mambucaba, a picturesque seaside village 126 miles west of Rio, early on Monday morning as nine search warrants were executed in different parts of the country.

Alexandre Ramagem ran Brazil’s intelligence agency under Bolsonaro, allegedly using spyware to track political opponents

Federal police agents have raided the home and offices of Brazil’s spy chief under the former president Jair Bolsonaro as part of an investigation into the alleged illegal monitoring of thousands of people, including two supreme court judges and a key ally of the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Alexandre Ramagem, a former federal police chief who ran Brazil’s intelligence agency, Abin, during Bolsonaro’s 2019-22 administration, was targeted as part of an inquiry into a “criminal organisation” that allegedly used Israeli spyware to track Bolsonaro’s political foes.