Brazil’s military police discovered two potential explosives attacks, planned to disrupt or halt the Jan. 1 inauguration of President-elect Inacio Lula da Silva, in the capital of Brasilia. The future Justice and Security Minister Flavio Dino has announced that security will be heightened and “reassessed.”
On Christmas Eve, police arrested 54-year-old George Washington de Oliveira Sousa, who was trying to blow up a fuel truck in the vicinity of the Brasilia international airport. A search of his home found several more rifles, large quantities of ammunition and five explosive devices.
According to the Brazilian Report, Sousa admitted in his deposition that his goal was to create chaos, and to urge backers of outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro to act to create the conditions for a declaration of a state of siege, if not a coup. Originally from the northern state of Para, he had rented an apartment in the capital in order to join pro-Bolsonaro forces at an encampment next to an army base in the capital. Sousa will be charged under the anti-terrorism law and could face up to 30 years in jail.
The next day, Dec. 25, military police found another cache of explosives, bulletproof vests and more weapons located in woods at the entrance to the city of Gama, about 35 km from the center of Brasilia. Demolition experts successfully detonated the explosives.
Police say that Sousa was not acting alone, and incoming Justice Minister Dino reported that the police are specifically looking at the financiers of Sousa’s weapons purchases. “This is obviously not a case of the so-called lone wolf,” he said, in an interview with Globonews. “There are powerful people financing this. Undoubtedly, private interests and economic agents” are involved, he underscored, and they will be investigated.
Nonetheless, he vowed, Lula’s inauguration “will take place in peace. All procedures will be reassessed with a view to strengthening security. And the fight against rioters and terrorists will be intensified. Democracy has won and will win,” as quoted by Sputnik.
