After the violent riots on January 8 in the Brazilian capital, the Brazilian judiciary faces the mammoth task of bringing those responsible for the uprising to justice. A few days after the new President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office, supporters of the far-right ex-President Jair Bolsonaro stormed and vandalized several government buildings.
More than 1,000 charges are expected to be filed against Bolsonaro supporters over the attack, a prosecutor who wished to remain anonymous told AFP.
The Office of the Attorney General said that so far 254 people have been charged with storming the government district, including with participation in an attempted coup. The sum of the damage to the Presidential Palace and the Congress alone amounted to 13.6 million real (2.45 million euros).
The Arrested
More than 2,000 Bolsonaro supporters were arrested immediately after the riots, 300 of them were at the scene of the crime. However, the police arrested most of the suspects in a Bolsonaro supporters’ camp about eight kilometers away, to which they had returned after the storming of the presidential palace, Congress and the Supreme Court.
The suspected right-wing violent criminals were housed separately from other prisoners in two prisons, the women in Colmeia prison and the men in Papuda prison.
On January 10, however, more than 600 prisoners were released during the ongoing investigation – mainly elderly people, pregnant women or mothers with small children – for “humanitarian reasons”, according to the police. Others were also transferred to their hometowns.
On January 21, the Supreme Federal Court (STF) in Brazil ordered the release of another 464 people on conditions such as wearing shackles or house arrest. A judge ordered 942 other suspects arrested after the riots to remain in detention based on evidence.
The charges
The investigation into the violent criminals is headed by prosecutor Alexandre de Moraes of the Supreme Federal Court. The accused are facing a series of charges under the umbrella term “anti-democratic acts”.
According to the federal police, these include forming a criminal organization, attempting to undermine the democratic order, inciting criminal offenses and participating in an attempted coup d’etat. According to Brazilian criminal law, the last point can be punished with a prison sentence of up to twelve years.
In the immediate aftermath of the events, there was much talk – including from Lula – of “terrorism” charges, which could carry a maximum sentence of 30 years. However, this criminal offense presupposes that the act was committed for religious, racist or xenophobic motives.
However, the storming of government buildings was politically motivated. Therefore, in the end, according to the public prosecutor’s office, “terrorism” could not be cited as a charge.
The hearings
In the first ten days after the storming of the government quarter alone, around 1,400 suspects were heard – because of the large number of suspects via video conference. Judges and prosecutors from other regions were brought in.
“It was an 18-hour week,” the prosecutor said. A total of about 100 federal prosecutors and hundreds of defense attorneys worked on the approximately 1,400 cases.
Given the unprecedented size of the case, many questions remain: will the indictments be combined in one mammoth trial or heard in multiple trials, and will the Supreme Court take on all cases or lower courts as well. Only one thing is certain: It will probably take years until all cases are closed. (AFP)
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