MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolsonaro insists he was not behind Jan. 8 riots

Bolsonaro had said that Lula had not been elected by the people but by the courts of justice

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro denied being behind the Jan. 8 riots in Brasilia whereby some of his followers were trying to lure the Armed Forces into staging a coup d'état against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro testified Wednesday for two hours before the Federal Police and denied any responsibility in the uprising. He also said that he “accidentally” published a video questioning the legitimacy of the 2022 presidential elections he lost to Lula.

Former Information Minister Fabio Wajngarten -a current advisor of Bolsonaro's- insisted that his boss “repudiated that same day” the assault on the headquarters of the three branches of government by hundreds of his followers.

The statement to the police came at a time when the Brazilian Congress officially launched a parliamentary committee to investigate the case.

Bolsonaro is under investigation for his alleged role as mastermind and instigator of the riots of January 8. He had left Brazil for the United States on Dec. 30, two days before the handover of power to Lula. On Jan. 8 he was in Orlando, Florida.

The prosecution had requested Bolsonaro be included in the investigation, citing a video that the former president uploaded to his social networks on Jan. 10 in which he questioned the election results saying Lula “was not elected by the people” but by the electoral and supreme court of justice, without corroborating evidence.

Bolsonaro's lawyer Paulo Bueno said Wednesday that the former president was probably under the effect of some medication when he shared the publication, as he had been hospitalized shortly before. “The publication was so accidental that he did not make any subsequent comment and deleted it shortly after,” he said.

The Federal Supreme Court on Tuesday charged 100 of the more than 200 denounced by the prosecution of having been involved in the riots. The defendants will be charged with attempted coup d'état and criminal association, punishable by over 20 years in prison.

For Bolsonaro, Wednesday's police statement was the second since he returned to Brazil on March 30. On April 5, he had to testify in another investigation opened for the irregular entry into Brazil of valuable jewelry gifts.

The former president faces a total of four investigations in the highest court, with prison sentences, in addition to more than a dozen administrative proceedings in the Superior Electoral Court for alleged abuse of political and economic power during the 2022 election campaign.