Brazilian authorities arrested several members of an elite Brazilian army unit on Tuesday, accusing them of planning to assassinate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2022, shortly before he was to become the country’s president, as part of a plot to keep the far-right incumbent president, Jair Bolsonaro, in power.
Four of those arrested were members of the military, including a former top aide to Mr. Bolsonaro, according to a police official who could not be identified discussing details of the case. A fifth person arrested in the case is a federal police agent, the official said.
Those detained used a “high level of technical military knowledge” to organize a plot to assassinate Mr. Lula, a leftist, and his pick for vice president, Geraldo Alckmin, on Dec. 15, 2022, the authorities said in a statement. The group had also planned to kill a Supreme Court justice, the authorities said, but they did not divulge the name of the justice.
“The planning drawn up by those under investigation detailed the human and military resources required to carry out the actions,” the police said in a statement.
A lawyer for Mr. Bolsonaro said his client had no involvement in or knowledge of the plot.
The former president “never agreed or participated in any type of plan of this nature,” the lawyer, Paulo Cunha Bueno, told The New York Times.
The police did not say if there was evidence that the plan to assassinate Mr. Lula and the others had been foiled or abandoned.
The arrests are part of a broader investigation into an attempted coup and Mr. Bolsonaro’s role in attempting to hold on to power following Brazil’s last presidential election when he was narrowly defeated by Mr. Lula. It is the first time the investigation has cited an effort to target Mr. Lula before his inauguration, in January 2023.
As part of this investigation, Mr. Bolsonaro has been accused of planning to arrest a Supreme Court justice, personally editing a draft decree aimed at overturning the election results and presenting plans for a coup to top military leaders, seeking their support, according to police statements.
Mr. Bolsonaro has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, calling the investigation political persecution.
Flávio Bolsonaro, a senator and the former president’s son, appeared to downplay Tuesday’s arrests, saying that since the plot had not been carried out, it was “simply not a crime.”
“As disgusting as it may be to think about killing someone, it is not a crime,” he said in a post on social media.
More than a year before Brazil’s election in 2022, Mr. Bolsonaro began sowing baseless doubts about the security of the nation’s voting machines, warning that he could only be defeated if they were rigged in his opponent’s favor.
When he lost, Mr. Bolsonaro did not officially concede the election. His supporters set up camps outside military headquarters, calling on the military to overturn an election that they claimed had been stolen.
Then, in an episode reminiscent of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, they invaded and vandalized Brazil’s congressional, Supreme Court and presidential offices just days after Mr. Lula was sworn in, hoping to provoke a military intervention.
The police are expected to conclude the monthslong probe into the attempted coup in the coming weeks, determining whether Mr. Bolsonaro tried to orchestrate a coup and if his claims of election fraud played a role in encouraging the riot.
While the Brazilian police can make recommendations, they do not have the power to formally charge any of those accused of plotting the coup. After the police conclude their investigation, they will present their findings to the country’s top federal prosecutor who will have to decide whether to pursue the case.
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