CNN
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Brazilian police looking out the home of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s justice minister discovered a draft decree proposing the creation of a state of protection to overturn the results of the rustic’s presidential election, the ministry’s spokeswoman advised CNN.
Justice Ministry spokeswoman Lorena Ribeiro mentioned Federal Police discovered the record whilst wearing out a seek and arrest warrant on the area of Anderson Torres on Tuesday.
She mentioned it proposed enforcing a “state of defense” within the Superior Electoral Court whilst Bolsonaro was once nonetheless chief with the intention to overturn the victory of his rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, within the October election. The draft had now not been signed through Bolsonaro, Ribeiro mentioned.
A state of protection is a prison measure that permits the sitting President to interfere in different spaces of presidency to safe public order. While Bolsonaro misplaced the October election, he remained president till the tip of December.
CNN has now not considered the record and Torres – who served as justice minister till the Bolsonaro management left workplace – has issued a remark on social media denying he was once the writer of the decree.
“As Minister of Justice, we are faced with hearings, suggestions, and proposals of the most diverse types,” he wrote. “In my house there was a pile of documents to be discarded, where most likely the material described in the article was found,” he added. “Everything would be taken to be shredded at the Ministry of Justice in due course.”
Torres instructed that the decree draft were intentionally leaked to media to discredit him.
“The cited document was picked up when I wasn’t there and leaked out of context, helping to fuel fallacious narratives against me. We were the first ministry to deliver management reports for the transition (of power),” he mentioned. “I respect Brazilian democracy. I have a clear conscience regarding my role as minister.”
After leaving executive, Torres took workplace as the pinnacle of Security for the Federal District of Brasilia, however was once fired on Sunday after protesters breached police limitations and broke into executive structures. He had traveled to Orlando, Florida, allegedly on vacation, simply days ahead of the riots and was once there as occasions spread out.
Torres vowed to chop his vacation brief and face justice after seek and arrest warrants had been issued through the Brazilian Supreme Court, denying any wrongdoing.
Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court issued Torres a preventive detention order below an arrest warrant issued on Wednesday.
The draft paperwork had been first reported through Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo on Thursday.
Brazil’s new Justice Minister Flavio Dino advised CNN Brasil on Thursday the life of the draft decree was once “appalling” and mentioned what it known as for was once “unconstitutional.”
“I didn’t have access to the document and according to the press reports, it was a decree for a coup d’état that emphasizes what we saw on January 8 (the day of the riots), which wasn’t an isolated case. It was an element of a chain, a link in a coup chain in Brazil that had preparatory and astonishing acts, such as a decree of military intervention in the Electoral Court, which is unconstitutional,” Dino mentioned.
He additionally criticized Torres for retaining the record at his house. “A public agent, upon becoming aware of a crime, should not keep such a document at home. It is something that really shows the will of closing the Supreme Court, the Congress, of preventing the freedom of the Brazilian people to choose their rulers. And all attempts failed, including the one on January 8.”
“What can I say to the Brazilian nation is if someone gives me a document of that nature, they would be arrested, because it is criminal. I wouldn’t keep it, I wouldn’t grind it,” Dino mentioned.
