Brazil arrests five military and police officers over alleged plot to kill Lula

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Brazilian police arrested five people, including military personnel, accused of planning a coup d’état and plot to kill President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his deputy and a top judge shortly before the leftwinger assumed power.

The alleged conspiracy targeted the then president-elect and his running mate, Geraldo Alckmin, and was to be carried out on December 15 2022, federal police in the capital Brasília said on Tuesday.

It also involved a plan to kidnap and possibly execute supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes, who had been placed under surveillance by the men, according to a document from the court granting arrest warrants. 

“Investigations indicate that the criminal organisation used a high level of technical military knowledge to plan, co-ordinate and execute illegal actions in the months of November and December 2022,” said police. 

The plan aimed to prevent Lula taking office at the start of last year following his October 2022 election victory over incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro, but was aborted by the plotters before being put into action, the judicial document said.

Of the five people arrested, four were military officers — including a reserve army general — and one was from the federal police, Brazil’s equivalent of the FBI. Most of those investigated had special forces training, the police added.

The arrests mark a significant development in ongoing investigations into alleged attempts to illegally reverse the election of Lula, who previously ruled for two terms between 2003 to 2011. 

Police say the suspects considered poisoning the president-elect as part of a detailed plan codenamed “Green Yellow Dagger”, an apparent reference to Brazil’s national colours. 

They approved the intrigue in a meeting at the house of Bolsonaro’s defeated running mate, retired general and former defence minister Walter Braga Netto, the supreme court document said. The group allegedly planned to institute a “crisis cabinet” following the coup, led by a retired army general and Braga Netto. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this year investigators released documents alleging that military officers and political allies of Bolsonaro, a former army captain, developed a detailed scheme to prevent a handover of power. Bolsonaro is a subject of the wide-ranging investigations. He denies any wrongdoing.

In the end no coup took place in Latin America’s most populous nation. But days after Lula’s inauguration last year, thousands of radical Bolsonaro supporters ransacked government buildings in Brasília on January 8 2023 calling for military intervention to overturn the election result, which they claimed without evidence had been rigged.

More than 260 of the rioters have been convicted, with many serving custodial sentences. 

De Moraes, the supreme court justice, has become a hate figure for the country’s far-right movement, at the same time as the court itself has been accused by critics of overstepping its powers. Last week a man died after detonating two explosives outside Brazil’s supreme court building.

The five people arrested over the alleged assassination plot were Hélio Ferreira Lima, Mario Fernandes, Rafael Martins de Oliveira, Rodrigo Bezerra Azevedo, all former or serving members of the military, and Wladimir Matos Soares, a federal police agent. All remained in custody on Tuesday afternoon.

Police said the possible crimes under investigation were violent abolition of the democratic state of law, coup d’état and criminal organisation.

Agents also executed three search and seizure warrants, as well as 15 other precautionary measures.

Additional reporting by Beatriz Langella