Plot to blow up in Brazil foiled
2022.12.26 15:04
Plot to blow up in Brazil foiled
Budrigannews.com – A copy of the police testimony that was seen by Reuters indicates that the far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s call to arms inspired the man arrested for attempting to set off a bomb in protest of Brazil’s election result.
On Saturday, police said they had foiled George Washington de Oliveira Sousa’s plan to set off an explosive device near the Brasilia airport.
The incident gave post-election violence in Brazil, where tensions remain high following the most contentious election in a generation, a new dimension.
In a television interview on Monday, Flavio Dino, the new Justice Minister, stated that security would need to be strengthened for the inauguration on Sunday of leftist President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who defeated incumbent Bolsonaro.
Dino commented on Sousa, “We’re not talking about a lone wolf.” The police will look into this because there are powerful people behind it. Political terrorism will not be tolerated in Brazil.
Wallison dos Reis Pereira, Sousa’s initial attorney, stated that the client had confessed and was assisting the police. Jorge Chediak, his current attorney, stated that he had not yet spoken with Sousa, who is currently in jail, but that his confession to the police contained numerous “contradictions.”
Sousa, a 54-year-old gas station manager from the northern state of Para, told police that his trip to the capital on December 12 was inspired by Bolsonaro’s sowing of election doubts.
He joined a group of pro-Bolsonaro election deniers outside the army headquarters, calling for a coup, when he arrived in Brasilia.
According to the copy of his testimony, he stated, “My trip to Brasilia was so I could join the protests in front of the army headquarters and wait for the armed forces to authorize me to take up arms and destroy communism.”
Sousa claimed that he became a registered gun owner in October of last year, joining a group that has increased sixfold to nearly 700,000 since Bolsonaro’s election in 2018 and his efforts to relax gun laws.
Since then, he claimed, he had invested nearly 30,800 reais in expanding his arsenal. On his way to Brasilia, he said he had five sticks of dynamite, two 12-gauge shotguns, two revolvers, three pistols, a rifle, more than a thousand rounds, and two 12-gauge shotguns.
Sousa stated, “The words of President Bolsonaro, who always emphasized the importance of civilians being armed by saying, ‘An armed population will never be enslaved,'” which was what motivated him to purchase the firearms.
In addition, he stated that he intended to lend his weapons to other CAC holders residing in the Brasilia camp. On Dec. 12, the day Lula’s triumph was ensured, a portion of the camp-occupants went after the government police HQ in Brasilia.
Sousa stated that he had some official support.
He claimed that police and firefighters near the camp told him after the Dec. 12 attack that they would not arrest any protesters for vandalism as long as they did not attack police. He was led to believe that “the armed forces’ intervention would be declared soon” as a result of their remarks.
However, he claimed that he and others in the camp devised a strategy to prevent Lula from taking office as weeks went by without a coup. “To provoke a military intervention and the decree of a state of siege to prevent the installation of communism in Brazil,” he stated, was their plan.
He claimed that an initial plan called for setting off a bomb in the airport’s parking lot, followed by anonymous tips about two more bombs in the departure lounge. He went on to say that the plotters also considered blowing up an electrical substation.
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Using the dynamite he had brought from Para and a remote triggering device that another camper had given him, Sousa told police he built the bomb on December 23. “I did not agree with the idea of exploding it in the airport carpark,” he said, claiming to have given the bomb to a fellow camper.
Sousa heard on the news that police had discovered the bomb near the airport on the same day. He decided to leave Brasilia the following day when he saw strange men near his rented apartment. He packed his belongings and put his weapons in the trunk of his car, but he was stopped by police before he could leave.
