Brasilia: Brazil’s Supreme Court has agreed to probe former president Jair Bolsonaro as part of an investigation into the incitement and organization of riots that led to the temporary seizure of government buildings in the capital city of Brasilia, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The top court authorized the investigation late on Friday, following a relevant request from the prosecutors, the newspaper said.
Earlier on Friday, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement that the “Attorney General of the Republic asked the Federal Supreme Court to include representation against former President Jair Bolsonaro in process 4.291, which investigates the instigation and intellectual authorship of anti-democratic acts that resulted in episodes of vandalism and violence in Brasilia last Sunday.”
The statement specified that the Attorney General’s request is based on the fact that on January 10, Bolsonaro published a video on social media (from the United States), questioning the results of the presidential election in Brazil, although the video was deleted shortly after.
Bolsonaro lost the presidential election in Brazil in October and left for the United States in late December. He did not participate in the inauguration of his successor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on January 1.
Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed the National Congress building, as well as Palacio do Planalto, one of the official palaces of the Presidency, and the Supreme Court building in Brasilia on January 8. Police managed to regain control of the vandalized buildings on the same day. Brazil’s federal police said on Wednesday that over 1,840 participants in the anti-government protests had been detained.
