Brazil declares it is ready to extradite Bolsonaro ally

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A high-ranking Brazilian security official who flew to the U.S. before a riot that that some have called an attempted coup must return within three days or his country willl request his extradition, Brazil’s justice minister said Friday.

The Supreme Court issued an order for the arrest of the former federal district security chief in connection to Jan. 8’s uprising in capital. This occurred when supporters of former President Jairbolsonaro stormed Congress and the presidential palace in an effort to reverse election results. The administration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who defeated Bolsonaro in October, is investigating any complicity by people who paid to transport rioters to the capital and by local security personnel who may have stood aside and let the mayhem occur.

His minister of institutional relations, Alexandre Padilha, said Thursday on Twitter that “the coup attempt was meticulously premeditated and sketched out” and that its authors will be punished.

Much of the focus has centered on Anderson Torres, Bolsonaro’s former justice minister, who became the federal district’s security chief on Jan. 2, and was in the U.S. on the day of the riot. The Supreme Court’s Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Torres’ arrest this week and has opened an investigation into his actions, which he characterized as “neglect and collusion.” In his decision, which was made public Friday, de Moraes said that Torres fired subordinates and left the country before the riot, an indication that he was deliberately laying the groundwork for the unrest.

Torres denies wrongdoing. He stated Jan. 10, via Twitter, that he would interrupt his vacation in Brazil to present his defense. It hasn’t happened yet three days later.

“If by next week his appearance hasn’t been confirmed, of course we will use mechansims of international legal cooperation. We will trigger procedures next week to carry out his extradition,” Justice Minister Flávio Dino said.

The minister pointed at a document discovered by Brazilian federal police upon visiting Torres’ house. This document was a draft decree which would have given Brazil control over its electoral authority, potentially overturning the election. Analysts and the Brazilian academy for electoral and political legal research are unsure about the authenticity and origin of the unsigned document. It remains to be seen if Bolsonaro, or any of his subordinates, took any steps to implement the measure which would have been illegal.

But the document “will figure in the police investigation, because it even more fully reveals the existence of a chain of people responsible for the criminal events,” Dino said, adding that Torres will need to inform police who drafted it.

By failing to initiate a probe against the document’s author or report its existence, Torres at very could be charged with dereliction of duty, said Mario Sérgio Lima, a political analyst at Medley Advisors.

Torres stated on Twitter that the document was likely found in a pile with other shredding documents and that it was leaked from context feed false narratives intended to discredit him.

Dino stated to reporters that there is no connection between Bolsonaro and the capital riot, who was in Florida from December through December.

The federal district’s former governor and former military police chief are also targets of the Supreme Court investigation made public Friday. After the riot, they were both removed from their respective positions.

__

Bridi, an AP journalist, reported from Brasilia.