Rio De Janeiro [Brazil], January 15: Brazil's Supreme Court has agreed to investigate far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro's role in last week's storming of government sites in Brasília by his supporters.
The decision comes following a request by Brazil's public prosecutor's office, the court said in a statement late on Friday.
Bolsonaro is accused of posting a video online on Tuesday that questioned the legality of Brazil's October elections in which he was defeated by leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
According to Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes, false statements were repeated on social media which, among other things, delegitimized democratic institutions and encouraged groups of Bolsonaro supporters to attack representatives of these institutions and "commit serious crimes against the democratic rule of law," as occurred on January 8.
Even though Bolsonaro posted the video two days after Sunday's attacks and deleted it again shortly afterwards, his alleged involvement in the riots should be investigated, said Deputy Attorney General Carlos Frederico Santos according to a statement by the public prosecutor's office.
The thousands of rioters who attacked Brazil's Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace in Brasília refuse to acknowledge Bolsonaro's defeat to da Silva, who was sworn in as president on January 1.
After the arrest of hundreds of suspected rioters, Brazilian police cleared a protest camp outside the armed forces headquarters in Brasília on Monday and took some 1,500 people into temporary custody.
Lula has accused Bolsonaro of inciting his supporters, but the former president has denied the claims.
In the wake of the attacks, authorities have ramped up security measures in Brasília to prevent potential further actions by Bolsonaro supporters.
Bolsonaro, who never made a public statement explicitly conceding that he lost, travelled to the US state of Florida with his family two days before the end of his term.
After being treated in hospital in Orlando for severe stomach pain, the former president is planning to return to Brazil by the end of January.
Source: Qatar Tribune
