BRASLIA: Brazil’s new leftist government tightened the net around suspected instigators of riots that targeted the seats of power, ordering a probe of ex-president Jair Bolsonaro and arresting his justice minister on Saturday.

Thousands of Bolsonaro backers broke into the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court buildings in the capital Brasilia last Sunday, demanding the ouster of his successor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

They smashed windows and furniture, destroying priceless works of art, and left graffiti messages calling for a military coup.

More than 2,000 alleged rioters were detained, and the authorities are tracking those suspected of having masterminded and financed the revolt that shocked Brazil and the world.

Late Friday, a Supreme Court judge gave the green light for a probe into the origins of the riots to also look at Bolsonaro, who for years had sought to cast doubt on Brazil’s internationally-hailed election system.

A request to add Bolsonaro to the suspect list had come from the office of the prosecutor general (PGR), which cited a video he had posted “questioning the regularity of the 2022 presidential elections.” By doing so, “Bolsonaro would have publicly incited the commission of a crime,” a PGR statement said.

The request concerned an ongoing investigation into the “instigation and intellectual authorship” of the rioting.

Bolsonaro has never publicly acknowledged Lula’s victory and left for the United States, where he remains, two days before his successor’s inauguration.

The far-right ex-president’s last Justice Minister, Anderson Torres, was also in the United States when the riots happened, and was arrested early Saturday on his return to Brasilia.

Torres is the subject of a Supreme Court warrant for alleged “collusion” with the rioters, and stands accused of “omission” in his most recent job as security chief for the capital.

Brazil’s Federal Police on Saturday said it had executed a warrant for Torres’ “preventive detention.” It said he “was arrested upon landing at Brasilia Airport and sent to custody, where he will remain at the disposal of Justice. The investigation remains confidential.” Lula’s new justice minister Flavio Dino on Friday confirmed the discovery at Torres’ home of a draft decree proposing emergency steps for the possible “correction” of the October election, which Lula had won by a razor-thin margin.

The undated and unsigned draft, published in a newspaper, bears Bolsonaro’s name, but Dino said the authorship was unknown.

Dino said the document connected the dots between Lula’s October 30 election victory and the January 8 riots.

It was, he said, a “fundamental element for understanding cause and effect,” a “missing link between a succession of events, showing that they were not isolated. And yes, that there was... a plan.” Lula and Dino have both said the violence could not have happened without collusion from members of the security forces.

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2023