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On January 8, 2023, supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the parliament in Brasilía.
Photo: ANDRE BORGES / EPA
Brazil's Supreme Court has launched an investigation into a senator who reported a conspiratorial meeting in the presence of ex-President Jair Bolsonaro to keep him in office despite his electoral defeat.
The federal police found that Senator Marcos do Val had described four different versions of the facts, the Supreme Court in Brasília said on Friday evening (local time).
Plot against President of the Electoral Board
Do Val reported, among other things, in a press conference about a meeting with ex-President Bolsonaro and a former MP from the Bolsonaro camp.
It was about a conspiracy against the president of the electoral authority Alexandre de Moraes, who is also investigating as a judge at the Supreme Court, among other things, because of the dissemination of fake news against Bolsonaro.
De Moraes should have been arrested and the election should have been decided in Bolsonaro's favor.
Faced with serious allegations of a possible attempted coup, de Moraes ordered the senator to be heard by the police.
However, this raised such doubts about the descriptions that the senator is now being investigated for false testimony and defamation, among other things.
The allegations should be fully clarified, the court said in a statement.
Bolsonaro supporters refuse to acknowledge defeat
Right-wing extremist Bolsonaro was narrowly defeated by left-wing politician Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the runoff election for the presidency in October.
Many of his supporters do not want to acknowledge the defeat and repeatedly call for military intervention.
Bolsonaro, who has been in the United States since the end of last year, recently questioned the result of the election there again without presenting any evidence.
In January this year, hundreds of his radical supporters stormed the Congress building in the capital, Brasilia.
Shortly thereafter, they also stormed the government seat Palácio do Planalto and the seat of the Supreme Court.
It took several hours for the police to regain control of the three buildings.
npa/dpa