On November 19, the Federal Police (PF) arrested four military personnel assigned to the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro for being part of an alleged plot to kill then president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2022, a PF source told AFP. A police officer was also arrested in the PF arrest operation, called “contragolpe” (counterstrike in English).
The soldiers involved had Special Forces training and planned to use “advanced military operational techniques,” as well as setting up a “crisis cabinet” that they themselves would join. Before their arrest, the suspects were in Rio de Janeiro, where they were taking part in a security mission for the G20 leaders’ meeting.
The alleged plan, called “Green and Yellow Dagger”, was to be carried out on December 15, 2022, and also envisaged killing the then vice-president-elect, Geraldo Alckmin, according to a statement from the Federal Police. They also planned to assassinate a Supreme Court justice, the statement added. The PF did not disclose the name of the magistrate in question.
The suspects could face charges of violent abolition of the rule of law, coup d’état and criminal organization.
The police are also carrying out other investigations into alleged plans to prevent Lula’s inauguration. One of them directly involves Bolsonaro, while another is investigating the acts of January 8, 2023, when thousands of Bolsonaro supporters attacked the headquarters of the Three Powers in Brasilia and caused serious damage.
In total, five preventive arrest warrants, three search and seizure warrants and 15 other precautionary measures were carried out, such as a ban on maintaining contact with the other suspects and on leaving the country, with passports being handed over within 24 hours. The warrants were carried out in Rio de Janeiro, Goiás, Amazonas, and the Federal District.
Among the targets of the operation are at least four military officers: reserve general Mario Fernandes and lieutenant colonels Hélio Ferreira Lima, Rafael Martins de Oliveira and Rodrigo Bezerra de Azevedo. Wladimir Matos Soares, a federal police officer, is also one of the targets.
Reserve general Mario Fernandes was one of Jair Bolsonaro’s trusted men in the Planalto Palace and was elevated to the position of executive secretary of the General Secretariat less than two months after joining the Army Reserve. His last post in the Force was as commander of Special Operations. In October 2022, the former president chose the general to serve as the Monitoring Authority for the Access to Information Law, a position linked to the General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic.
According to the PF, the investigated parties’ plan “detailed the human and military resources necessary to unleash the actions, using advanced military operational techniques, in addition to the subsequent establishment of an ‘Institutional Crisis Management Office’, to be integrated by the investigated parties themselves for the management of institutional conflicts arising from the actions.”
The facts under investigation constitute the crimes of violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, coup d’état and criminal organization.
This article was translated and adapted from two articles originally published on Brasil de Fato.
