As it pursues people it believes are involved for a far-right riot in the capital last weekend, Brazilian authorities have handed a former justice minister and ally of ex-President Jair Bolsonaro three days to return home or face extradition from the United States.
In connection with the incident in Brasilia on January 8, when thousands of Bolsonaro supporters assaulted Congress, the Supreme Court, and the presidential palace to challenge the election results from October, the Brazilian Supreme Court has ordered Anderson Torres’ arrest.
Torres has asserted his innocence and promised to appear in court to plead his case, but he and Bolsonaro continue to reside in the US state of Florida.
The Brazilian government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, which has promised to look into anyone who assisted in funding and planning the attack on the nation’s democratic institutions, stated on Friday that it has not yet submitted a request to the US for Torres’ extradition.
However, Flavio Dino, the minister of justice, told reporters that “we would employ channels of international legal cooperation, of course, if by next week [Torres’s] appearance hasn’t been guaranteed. Next week, we’ll start the processes for carrying out his extradition.
On the day of the incident, Torres—who had just been sworn in as Brasilia’s security chief on January 2—was in the US. But after the attack, he was fired from his position after Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is in charge of the riot inquiry, accused him of “neglect and collaboration.”
Angry protests and blockades by the former far-right leader’s followers erupted in Brasilia just a few weeks after Lula, who presided over Brazil from 2003 to 2010, narrowly defeated Bolsonaro in an election run-off in October.
Bolsonaro misrepresented the vulnerability of Brazil’s electronic voting system for months, fueling concerns that he might challenge the results. This week, allegations that the former president assisted in inciting the incident also stemmed from his campaign.
That criticism has been disputed by Bolsonaro, who left for the US two days before Lula was ushered in as president on January 1. On Sunday, he tweeted that while nonviolent protests are a necessary component of democracy, damage and invasions of public institutions are “exceptions to the norm.”
However, after Bolsonaro aired a video “questioning the validity of the 2022 presidential elections,” federal prosecutors petitioned the Supreme Court on Friday to add him to a list of those under investigation.
Bolsonaro “would have openly incited the conduct of a crime” by doing this, according to a statement from the prosecutor general’s office.
Two days after the riot, the footage was posted and then removed. However, the office claimed that despite the fact that it happened after the uprising, it may still be used as “a probative connection” to support “a global examination of the defendant’s conduct committed before and after January 8, 2023.”
Dino, Brazil’s justice minister, had told reporters that Bolsonaro and the incident in the capital had not yet been linked.
A draft of an order that would have taken control of Brazil’s electoral authority and perhaps nullified the election was found during a police raid on Torres’ residence earlier this week.
Dino added Torres would need to reveal details regarding the document’s origins because its origins are still unknown.
Torres might be prosecuted with dereliction of duty for neglecting to launch an investigation into the document’s author or disclose its existence, according to Mario Sergio Lima, a political analyst with Medley Advisors, who spoke with The Associated Press.
Torres claimed on Twitter that the document was likely found in a stack with other documents meant for shredding and that it was used out of context to support untrue stories intended to harm his reputation.
The previous military police head and governor of the federal district are also under investigation by the Supreme Court, which was made public on Friday. After the violence, both were fired from their jobs.
