Brazilian soldiers prevented on Sunday the
arrest of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro
who attacked the headquarters of the three public powers in Brasilia, the US press revealed today.
"Here you will not arrest people
," Army Commander General
Júlio César de Arruda
told Justice Minister Flávio Dino, according to two officials present, quoted by
The Washington Post.
According to the reconstruction of the newspaper, "when
senior officials of the Lula administration arrived at the Army headquarters
on Sunday night with the objective of guaranteeing the arrest of the insurgents in the camp, they found themselves in front of tanks and three military lines ", quoted the
ANSA
news agency
.
That act of protection, "which Lula government officials say
gave hundreds of supporters time to escape arrest
, is one of several indications of a troubling pattern that authorities are now investigating as evidence of
alleged collusion between the military and police and the thousands of rioters
who invaded the institutions".
The same pattern, according to the newspaper, is also "a change in the security plan in the face of the devastaters gathered outside the federal buildings on Sunday", in addition to "the
inaction and fraternization of the police
when they began to enter the buildings, and the presence of a high command of the military police who had told his superiors that he was on vacation".
The article was based on interviews with more than 20 senior administration and judiciary officials, protest organizers, participants, and includes previously unreported details of the five-hour attack that rocked the South American country.
The first signs of collusion between the police and the attackers
Several hours after the attack on government buildings in Brazil began, the suspicion of
collusion between the Brasilia Police and the Bolsonaro protesters began
to gain strength based on the videos circulating on social networks and the suggestive lack of security in the vicinity.
As published by the
Globo.com
site last Sunday, a group of ten
military policemen were filmed talking to the attackers and recording images
of the invasion of the National Congress on their cell phones.
While the radicals went up the ramp and destroyed the building,
the police waited next to the vehicles,
without any action to contain the extremists, reports the Brazilian media.
The invasion occurred after a confrontation with the Military Police in the Explanada dos Ministérios, in Brasilia.
The participants in anti-democratic acts carried sticks and stones.
According to
Globo.com
, the military police tried to contain the radicals with pepper spray, but they invaded the containment area that surrounds the National Congress.
The suspicions denounced by Lula Da Silva
In his speech hours after the attack, President
Lula Da Silva
had stated that the Federal District policemen who were filmed avoiding arresting the protesters will also have to pay.
The president remarked that
there was a defective security operation.
"We believe that
there was a lack of security
and I want to say that all the people who did this will be found and will be punished," Lula said in Araraquara, São Paulo state, where he was visiting due to a flood tragedy.
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Video: a security camera of the Brazilian Congress shows how the invasion of followers of Jair Bolsonaro was