Add Category
A Brazilian Supreme Court judge has ordered the arrest of the capital's most recent public security chief after supporters of right-wing former president Jair Bolsonaro led a rampage through government buildings.
Key points:
- In security chief Anderson Torres's arrest warrant, a judge wrote "ignorance or incompetence" cannot be excused
- Protesters had called for a military coup to return Jair Bolsonaro to power
- More than 1,000 people were detained following the riots
Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the arrest of Anderson Torres, who was Mr Bolsonaro's justice minister before taking over this month as the public security chief for Brasilia.
Thousands of protesters vandalised the Supreme Court, Congress and presidential offices on Sunday local time.
Mr Torres, who was removed from office the day of the riots, was not in the city when they occurred, having flown to Florida earlier this month.
In a post on Twitter on Tuesday, he said he would return to Brazil from Orlando, where he was vacationing with his family, and turn himself.
Mr de Moraes also requested the arrest of Fabio Augusto Vieira, the head of Brasilia's military police, one of a number of officials responsible for protecting the key Brasilia government buildings.
Mr Vieira could not immediately be reached for comment.
Details of the charges levelled against the pair were not immediately clear.
In the arrest warrant, Mr de Moraes cited the men's failure to ensure proper security forces were in place.
He also cited their authorisation of the entrance into the city of more than 100 buses with Bolsonaro supporters on board, and their failure to close down a camp at which the former president's loyalists had been gathering for months.
"In such a sensitive moment for Brazilian democracy, in which anti-democratic protests are occurring all day long, with the occupation of military buildings across the country, and in Brasilia, one cannot use the excuse of ignorance or incompetence," Mr de Moraes said in the arrest order, previously disclosed to Reuters by a person familiar with the matter.
A Reuters witness spotted police at the Torres family residence in an upscale Brasilia neighbourhood, where a resident said they left carrying bags.
Across town, police set about questioning more than 1,000 protesters after they were detained as troops dismantled their camp opposite the army's headquarters.
Protesters at the camp had called for a military coup to overturn the October election in which leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva narrowly defeated Mr Bolsonaro.
Mr de Moraes, who is running investigations of the "anti-democratic" demonstrations, vowed in a speech to combat the "terrorists" calling for a coup.
Yet the challenge of carrying out such an enormous criminal investigation into a loosely organised pro-Bolsonaro movement in the first weeks of a new government was already beginning to show.
Opposition senator Marcos do Val, who has denounced the Brasilia attack as a blunder for the political right, told journalists outside the gym where the detainees were being held that many of them were "paying for being in the wrong place at the wrong time".
By late afternoon, 527 had been arrested, while 599 detainees were released, most of them elderly people, mothers with children or people with health problems, according to the police.
About 200 other demonstrators were under arrest and awaiting charges for their role in the rampage, which saw some of the capital's most iconic buildings vandalised during the worst attack on Brazilian democracy in decades.
'Nothing was done' to stop attack
The investigations may reach far beyond Brasilia.
Pro-Bolsonaro militants discussed on social media their plans to disrupt highways and oil refineries to cause economic chaos in sync with their storming of the capital.
Brazilian energy company Eletrobras is investigating whether the collapse of two transmission towers was related to the violence in Brasilia, according to two sources familiar with the probe.
Eletrobras did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Its subsidiary, Eletronorte, released a statement on Monday local time about a fallen tower, which connected rural communities in northern Brazil to the central grid, and had "signs of sabotage".
The violence stunned Mr Lula's government, which has been in office for barely a week, and could delay economic policy announcements that were planned for this week by an administration eager to show results.
On Monday night, Mr Lula met with the head of the Supreme Court, congressional leaders and state governors in a show of national unity to condemn the riots.
He accused Mr Bolsonaro's supporters of trying to overthrow democracy and questioned why the army had not discouraged calls for a military coup.
Mr Bolsonaro, who flew to Florida 48 hours before his term ended, was released from an Orlando hospital where he had been admitted on Monday.
He was seen re-entering a residence the following night, where he has been staying for most of his Florida trip.
It was not immediately clear whether Mr Bolsonaro had met with Mr Torres while in Florida.
Mr Bolsonaro, 67, told CNN Brasil he might cut short his stay there due to his medical issues, returning to Brazil before the end of the month.
His son, senator Flavio Bolsonaro, denied the former president was responsible for the riots.
"Since the election result, he's been silent, licking his wounds, virtually incommunicado," he said in a session in the Senate.
Public prosecutors have asked for a federal audit court to freeze the ex-president's assets in light of Sunday's vandalism — a move outside the traditional scope of that court.
Reuters