With the arrest on Saturday of his former Minister of Defense and Civil House, General Walter Braga Nettothe circle narrows around Jair Bolsonarowho runs the risk of being the next to go to jail if he is also accused of obstruction of justice, as happened with the general arrested in Rio de Janeiro in the investigation into the 2022 coup attempt to prevent Lula’s inauguration as president. At the end of November, in the ‘Anti-Coup’ operationan army general had already been arrested, Mario Fernandesformer executive secretary of the Presidency of the Republic in the Bolsonaro government, three soldiers and a federal police officer among Rio de Janeiro y Brasilia. They are accused of having prepared a plan, from November 2022, to assassinate President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his deputy Geraldo Alckmin on December 15, 2022, that is, before his inauguration on January 1, 2023. Alexandre de Moraesnow a judge of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) and at the time of the events president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (STE), was also among the group’s objectives.
“The Braga Netto prison places Bolsonaro as Moraes’ next target“, writes Francisco Leali in the newspaper The State of São Paulo. For Leali, “the arrest of Braga Netto, in itself, is already a sensitive issue for those around him. It must be taken into account that this is not another detainee in the wave of arrests ordered by Moraes. He is a four-star general, also from the reserve, who was Minister of Defense. As to Bolsonarothe ineligible captain, is now the highest-ranking suspect in the group’s hierarchy who dreamed of not allowing Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to keep the position he won in the 2022 elections. Apparently, the dispute is moving.”
According to the Federal Police, Saturday’s operation was launched “to avoid the repetition of illegal acts” and involved people who “obstructed the free production of evidence during the criminal procedural investigation.” In addition to the arrest of Braga Netto, searches were carried out at the home of the retired colonel Flávio Peregrino Botelhoin Brasilia. Botelho held positions in the Institutional Security Cabinet (GSI), the Civil House and the Ministry of Defenseand he is Braga Netto’s trusted man. The preventive detention decision signed by Judge Moraes states that the evidence found in the coup plans demonstrates “the extreme danger of the agents.” The court also described Braga Netto as “an agent identified as a member of an articulated criminal group.”
According to the accusation, Bolsonaro’s former minister tried to find out the content of the plea agreement signed by the president’s former right-hand man, Mauro Cidwith the Federal Police, contacting his father, General Mauro Cesar Lourena Cid. In fact, it was the new statements by Mauro Cid, who changed his version and added important details in exchange for an agreement with justice, that aggravated Braga Netto’s position. According to the accusation, the general would have contacted Cid’s father to give an aligned and coherent version of the events, obtain confidential data and keep the other people involved informed. A document with questions and answers about Mauro Cid’s accusations was found by the Federal Police at the headquarters of the Liberal Party (PL), on the desk of Braga Netto’s assistant, Flávio Peregrino Botelho. The general’s name had been mentioned 95 times in the Federal Police indictment sent to the Supreme Federal Court (STF) at the end of November. In addition to him, some 40 soldiers and former president Jair Bolsonaro were accused in the document, defined by the agents as the one who “had direct control over the intention of the coup d’état in Brazil.”
For the Federal Police, Braga Netto, one of the former president’s loyalists, He was the architect of the alleged coup plan, “the brain responsible for making the coup operational.” The general had to integrate an Institutional Crisis Management Cabinet immediately after the coup due to the charisma he had among the military. Former Minister of Defense and Civil House of the Bolsonaro government, it was at his house that a meeting was held on November 12, 2022, from which, according to the Federal Police, a series of “suspicious” messages and activities with the ultimate goal of killing Lula. In the accusation that led to the arrest of Braga Netto, another information emerged, namely, that at that meeting the general handed over to Major Rafael de Oliveira money in a bag normally used to give wine. This money would have been used to finance the surveillance activities of the coup plotters against the victims they intended to attack. In addition, Braga Netto, according to the investigation, pressured the then commanders of the Air Force and the Army to join the plan. The general’s defense refuted the accusations. In a statement issued immediately after the arrest, his lawyers stated that they would only speak out after “having full knowledge of the facts that gave rise to the decision adopted.” However, they stressed that “with the conviction of due legal process, we will have the opportunity to demonstrate that there was no obstruction to the investigation.”
The political impact of this arrest is so important that the country has literally divided in two. There are those who defend the general and those who accuse him, from the different political camps. Bolsonaro, who had chosen Braga Netto as his deputy in the 2022 presidential elections, waited a few hours before commenting on the case on his social networks. “More than 10 days ago the investigation was concluded by the Federal Police, accusing 37 people, and was sent to the Public Ministry. How can someone be arrested today for obstructing already concluded investigations?”Bolsonaro wrote. His deputy, General Hamilton Mourãonow a senator for the Republicans party in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, also came out in defense of Braga Netto, saying that “It does not represent any risk to public order.” “His arrest is nothing more than a new page in the violation of legal norms to which Brazil is subject,” he added. Some jurists such as Andrea Marsiglia are also critical, according to whom “there is no new fact that demonstrates that there is obstruction to the investigation at this time. Preventive detention is not a punishment, but a measure to ensure the integrity of the investigation. If there are no new facts that obstruct the investigation, the detention is illegal.”
Alexandre de Moraes, The judge in charge of the case and who is also the victim, a contradiction according to some jurists that has not prevented the STF from letting him handle the case, has a different opinion. Moraes, who signed the arrest decision, considered that new and important facts revealed “various behaviors aimed at hindering or obstructing the aforementioned investigation.”
President Lula also intervened in the case. In a press conference immediately after his resignation from the San Pablo hospital where he was admitted and on his social networks, he commented on the arrest of Braga Netto, saying that respects the presumption of innocence. “Everything that I didn’t get, I want you to get. But, If what they intended to do is proven, which is a coup d’état, they will have to be severely punished. We cannot tolerate the lack of respect for democracy and the Constitution. We cannot accept, in a country as generous as ours, that there are people plotting the death of an elected president of the Republic, his vice president and the judge who presided over the Supreme Electoral Tribunal,” Lula said.
His ministers also intervened. Paulo Pimentahead of government communications, declared on his social networks that “the day began with the arrest of Braga Netto. “That all coup plotters be investigated, tried and held accountable for attacking our democracy.” Hoffmann’s bluespresident of the Workers’ Party (PT), spoke about Braga Netto, as well as the STF’s sentencing of Bolsonarist Roberto Jefferson to nine years in prison and the majority in the Regional Electoral Court to remove deputy Carla Zambelli. “There are three names from the Bolsonaro leadership who have committed very serious crimes against democracy. Three inciters to hatred and political violence. There can be no impunity for these people. Punishment for everyone, starting with the ineligible leader. “No amnesty.”
As for the The Army said in a statement that it is “following the investigations determined by the Court and cooperating with the authorities.”but that “will not comment on the procedures carried out by other institutions.” As a soldier, Braga Netto is detained in the 1st Army Division in Rio de Janeiro. In an editorial, the newspaper The State of São Paulo wrote that “whatever the criminal fate of General Braga Netto, his preventive detention shows the extent of the shame that Bolsonarism has brought to the Armed Forces.” The text also states that “the arrest of a character like Braga Netto, who has been a central figure in Brazilian politics in recent years, is indicative of the lack of scruples with which senior officials of the previous government seem to have acted to remain in power despite his electoral defeat.” According to the newspaper Folha de São Paulo“Braga Netto’s arrest is a turning point for the Army. “Your Command can take advantage of the crisis to consolidate historic change, but it must race against time.”
Brazil, let us remember, never really processed the chapter of the military dictatorship that governed the country from 1964 to 1985. In 1979, a controversial Amnesty Law, sanctioned by the then president João Batista Figueiredogranted amnesty to all those who committed political crimes between September 2, 1961 and August 15, 1979. In 2012, during the government of Dilma Rousseffthe Truth Commission was created, which in 2014 presented a report classifying 377 people as directly or indirectly responsible for torture and murder during the military dictatorship. None of them, however, were arrested.
So, The ‘Anti-Coup’ operation has once again awakened ghosts of the past and, according to analysts, it will also play a important role ahead of the 2026 presidential elections. Braga Netto currently holds the position of national secretary of Institutional Relations of Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party, a party now disintegrated due to the investigation of the coup attempt and until now the strongest right-wing alternative to Lula’s PT. At a delicate moment in which the country questions whether Lula, 79, is prepared or not for a fourth term, Brazilians thus find themselves with few opposition alternatives. If until now polarization has divided the electorate, the risk, several analysts fear, is that in 2026 citizens will arrive without many options or changes, unless the center-right quickly builds a valid and credible alternative in the next two years.
