Bolsonaro called a repressor "national hero" | B …

Bolsonaro has described the late Colonel of the Brazilian army Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, head of a repressive center in São Paulo during the last military dictatorship, as "national hero". Colonel Brilhante Ustra was accused of torturing several political prisoners during the dictatorship to death.

"A national hero who prevented Brazil from falling into what the left wants today," Bolsonaro, a far-right party, told the press. The Brazilian president met with Maria Joseíta Silva Brilhante Ustra, widow of the colonel who headed the Center for Internal Defense Operations of the detachment of operations and information (DOI-CODI) in San Pablo, one of the biggest centers of repression of the dictatorship. "She has a huge heart," said the widow, "I'm in love with her.I did not have many contacts, but I had one with her husband when she was alive." "she explained.

This soldier, who died as a result of cancer in 2015, came to recognize that "excesses like in any war" might have occurred, but that he was never tortured. He made these statements to the National Truth Commission, which investigated crimes committed under dictatorship in Brazil, where the army was in power between 1964 and 1985.

Brilhante Ustra was sentenced in 2008 for torturing a journalist in 1971, but the proceedings were initiated by a Brazilian court, finding that the victim's trial against the family took place two decades after the 1988 Constitution, which recognizes the 39; amnesty. crimes committed during the military dictatorship.

This is not the first time that Bolsonaro exalts the figure of this repressor. The right-wing leader also remembered him during the political trial that led to the dismissal of Dilma Rousseff in 2016. On this occasion, Bolsonaro, then federal deputy, declared that he would vote in memory of the colonel, whom he described as "fear of Rousseff". During her youth, Dilma Rousseff was arrested and tortured at the Brilhante Ustra Detention Center.

Bolsonaro, captain of the army reserve, is a fervent defender of the actions of the armed forces during the dictatorship and, since his arrival at the presidency, he seeks to take stock of this period. A few days ago, he raised another controversy when he questioned the official truth about the disappearance and death under the dictatorship of militant Fernando Santa Cruz, father of the current president of the country. 39 Brazilian Bar Association (OAB), Felipe Santa Cruz. "One day, if the president of the OAB wants to know how his father disappeared during the military period, I will tell him, he will not want to hear the truth, I will tell him," he said. . According to the Brazilian president, Fernando Santa Cruz was reportedly killed by fellow activists, members of a faction of the left-wing organization Acción Popular.

These words of Bolsonaro motivated a response from Lula who, from prison, sent a public letter to the son of Fernando Santa Cruz: "we will always venerate our true heroes, and that's what tyrants can not stand."

The official version of the commission that investigated the crimes of the dictatorship is that the death of Fernando Santa Cruz, who died in 1974, occurred "abnormally, violently and was caused by the state. Brazilian".

A few days later, Bolsonaro replaced four of the seven members of the Special Commission on Political Deaths and Missing Persons (Cemdp) during the military dictatorship because, according to him, the government "is now on the right." Instead, he named politicians linked to his party and the army.