Former Brazilian Justice Minister Anderson Torres will be questioned Tuesday by the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) about the coup attacks of January 8 in the capital.
Torres was Secretary of Public Security of the Federal District when radical followers of former president Jair Bolsonaro invaded and ransacked on that date the headquarters of the National Congress, the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and the Planalto Palace, seat of the Executive Branch.
A close ally of Bolsonaro, the former minister emerged as one of the main people investigated by the Federal Police about the political articulations for the coup attempt.
Three days before the anti-democratic actions, Torres traveled to the United States, with the alibi that he was going on vacation, despite intelligence warnings about the risk of disturbances in the events scheduled for Brasilia on January 8.
The former secretary’s vacation was only scheduled for January 9 and in the United States he still met with Bolsonaro, who had been there since the penultimate day of his term.
Last night, Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the STF, granted Torres the possibility of remaining silent before the interrogations.
He is being investigated for alleged omission in the assembly of the security scheme on the day of the coup acts. The ICC approved the violation of his confidentiality.
Torres was imprisoned for about four months, but was later released by order of De Moraes, who imposed, however, the use of an electronic anklet.
The former minister is also to be questioned by the parliamentarians about a document found by the Federal Police in his house, known as the “minutes of the coup”.
In that content appeared a decree of state of defense in the Superior Electoral Court, with the purpose of changing the result of the presidential elections of 2022, when President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated Bolsonaro. About that episode, Torres already gave a statement and told the police that the document had no legal validity or importance and should have been discarded.
His defense asked on Friday that he be allowed to remain silent during his statement to the ICC. He was called to the commission as a witness, being so, it is mandatory to appear and comply with the commitment to tell the truth.
