The two Bolsonaristas convicted: Alan Diego dos Santos and George Washington de Oliveira.
Brazil already has its first sentenced to prison for the coup movements that Bolsonarismo starred in recent months: George Washington de Oliveira and Alan Diego dos Santos were sentenced, this Thursday at the last minute, to nine and five years in prison respectively. The two are accused of maneuvering to place a bomb on a truck outside the Brasilia airport on Christmas Eve, just days before the inauguration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The objective, according to the Prosecutor's Office, was "to provoke a social commotion so that there would be a military intervention and a state of siege would be decreed." The bomb failed and there were no injuries, but the attempt was part of an escalation of coup agitation that began with camps outside the barracks and culminated in the violent mob that stormed the headquarters of the three powers on January 8.
Many of the more than a thousand arrested in the assault on the presidency, the Supreme Court and Congress are now being indicted by the highest court. And Jair Bolsonaro's former justice minister Anderson Torres, who that day was the head of Brasilia's security, has spent four months in jail accused of negligence and complicity with the coup plotters. He was released on Thursday, although he will await his trial with an electronic ankle bracelet, unable to leave the city, communicate with others under investigation or use social networks.
The two convicted of the foiled attack at the airport met in the camp erected in front of the Army headquarters in Brasilia, where hundreds of Bolsonaristas spent two months calling for a military intervention, dissatisfied with the result of the elections. It was there that "they decided to unite to practice crimes," according to the complaint filed at the time by the Prosecutor's Office.
Oliveira traveled by car from his hometown in the state of Pará (more than 1,900 kilometers to the north) with firearms, ammunition and dynamite. The aim was to "ensure social unrest and prevent the spread of what he calls communism." With all this material, Oliveira assembled and delivered the explosive device to Dos Santos, who passed it to a third party, Wellington Macedo (who is a fugitive and has not been convicted) to place it at the gates of the Brasilia airport. The initial objective was to blow up a light pole to damage the electrical distribution throughout the city, but at the last moment the bomb was placed in a truck loaded with aviation kerosene and with a capacity of 60,000 liters. The damage could have been huge, but the driver noticed there was a foreign object and called the police.
Those convicted can appeal the sentence, but the judge has decided that they remain imprisoned because he considers that they still pose a danger to social order. Both were convicted of endangering the lives of others, attempting to cause fuel fire and carrying firearms without a permit (in Oliveira's case), but in no case for terrorism, despite the fact that since 2016 Brazil has an anti-terrorism law that defines it as "the use or storage of explosives (...) or other means capable of causing harm or promoting mass destruction."
Those who a few days later participated in the coup attempt of January 8 (Bolsonaristas who acted with violence but without showing weapons) were initially described by judges, politicians and local media as terrorists, but that has subsided. The Prosecutor's Office denounced 1,390 people, and so far the Supreme Court has charged all the suspects whose cases it has analyzed, some 550, who are already formally accused of criminal association, violent abolition of the rule of law and coup d'état. None, for the moment, for terrorism.
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