By the editor
LBrazilian police have arrested a supporter of incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro who tried to use explosives to create “chaos” a week before the inauguration of President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, local media reported on Sunday.
The man, identified as George Washington de Oliveira Sousa, was arrested on Saturday. He had planted an explosive device in a tank truck near Brasilia airport. Lula’s inauguration ceremony is due to take place in the Brazilian capital on January 1.
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His aim, according to his statements to the police published by the local press, was to “trigger chaos” and “the intervention of the armed forces” in order to “prevent the establishment of communism in Brazil”.
It was the truck driver who alerted the police after finding the explosive device on Saturday morning.
Although there was an attempt to activate it, the device did not explode, Robson Candido, a senior Brasilia police official, said at a press conference, quoted by the site. information G1.
“The serious events that occurred yesterday in Brasilia prove that the camps of the so-called ‘patriots’ have become incubators for terrorists,” tweeted Flavio Dino, appointed Minister of Justice in the next Lula government.
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The arrested person clarified that the plan was designed with other Bolsonarians who demonstrated for days after the announcement of the defeat of the outgoing president in front of the army headquarters in Brasilia.
The idea was to place at least two explosive devices at strategic locations, with the aim of achieving the “declaration of a state of siege in the country” and, from there, to “provoke the intervention of the forces armies,” Oliveira Sousa told police, according to the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper.
