The former head of the Brazilian army revealed that the cpu …

Former Brazilian army chief Eduardo Villas Boas revealed one of the many arbitrators to which the former president was subjected Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. As he confessed, Brazilian military leadership articulated in 2018 – the year of the elections that finally brought Jair Bolsonaro to power – a threat that the Federal Supreme Court would not accept habeas corpus to free da Silva, who was emerging as a favorite candidate in the polls.

The revelation is included in a 1 p.m. interview published this Thursday that Villas Boas granted for a book by the Historical Documentation Center of the Getulio Vargas Foundation University (FGV). The, justifies the threat against the highest court by the argument that there were coup movements calling for military intervention in the event of Lula’s release, detained after being convicted of corruption by former judge Sérgio Moro.

“The text (or the threat)”, which at this time it spread on Twitter, “It was submitted to my staff and then to the military leaders of the region (across the country) before its publication. It was a warning, much more than a threat,” explains the former general of the army, arrived at the highest post in the government of Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016) then, in 2019, after his retirement, he became presidential adviser to Bolsonaro.

On April 3, 2018, on the eve of the habeas corpus trial to free Lula by the Federal Court (who was beaten 6 to 5), Villas Boas, then head of the army of Michel Temer, He warned in a tweet: “You have to ask who thinks of the good of the country and of future generations and who only thinks of personal interests”.

<< I assure the Nation (as Bolsonarism calls Brazil) that the Brazilian army judges to share the desire of citizens for the good in the repudiation of impunity and of respect for the Constitution, social peace, democracy, as well as to remain attentive to their institutional missions, ”Villas Boas's Twitter post said.

At that time, the former army chief explained in the in-depth interview broadcast on Thursday, Lula’s release has raised concerns in the business community and in some sectors of the armed forces. The message on Twitter, Villas Boas said, would have been to try to relieve that pressure. “We have had an increase in requests for military intervention. It was very wise to prevent them because later we would be employed to contain them. Internally, we act because of the porosity of our internal audience, all immersed in society. They shared a similar anxiety, ”he admitted.

In the book, however, he declined to reveal a speech in which Bolsonaro allegedly thanked him for the election. “What we are talking about will die among us, I assure you it is nothing of a conspiracy,” said the retired general. Bolsonaro left the military as a captain due to indiscipline in 1988 and has since hoisted the flag of the armed forces salary agenda. Its government is also the one with the largest military presence since the end of the dictatorship.

According to Villas Boas, Bolsonaro’s victory was due to his fight against “political correctness”. And he illustrated, with controversial arguments and without supporting figures: “The more there is equality between the sexes, the more femicide grows, the more we fight against racism, the more it intensifies, the more the ecologism is greater, the more the environment is attacked ”.

In April 2018, when Villas Boas’ tweet was published, there was no manifestation of political power from the Temer government regarding the warning to the court, which ended up leaving Lula in jail for 510 days after a conviction. for corruption of Moro. This former judge, who joined Bolsonarism, left the bench to become Minister of Justice, a post he finally left last May due to disputes with the president. He is now a consultant for the American law firm Alvarez Marsal, in charge of managing the bankruptcy of Odebrecht, the main construction company of the Lava Jato operation.