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SAO PAULO -- When Lt. Col. Mauro Cid arrived astatine Brazil's Supreme Court connected Tuesday to attest against his onetime ally, erstwhile Defense Minister Gen. Walter Braga Netto, helium did not salute the elder officer.
It was a departure from subject protocol that underscored however the country’s erstwhile hugely fashionable subject has been divided and roiled by ungraded arsenic Brazil tries an explosive lawsuit successful which apical subject officers are accused of helping erstwhile President Jair Bolsonaro attempt a coup to stay successful powerfulness aft losing an election.
Analysts said that the 2 men's quality successful a civilian tribunal marked a historical departure from the impunity elder subject officers person enjoyed since the state underwent 2 decades of subject rule.
“Putting a colonel up against a wide levels the playing the tract and signals that for the justness system, each defendants are equal,” said Lucas Figueiredo, the writer of respective books astir Brazil's dictatorship. "The information volition prevail.”
Cid, a erstwhile aide-de-camp to Bolsonaro who signed a plea bargain to cooperate with authorities, has already testified that Braga Netto took portion successful a gathering successful November 2022 during which subject officials discussed plans to halt existent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from taking office.
Braga Netto is simply a adjacent state of Bolsonaro who besides served arsenic the erstwhile president's chief-of-staff and his 2022 moving mate.
The officers are lasting proceedings alongside Bolsonaro, respective different officers, and a fewer civilians. They look 5 charges including attempting to signifier a coup, engagement successful an equipped transgression organization, attempted convulsive abolition of the antiauthoritarian regularisation of law, aggravated harm and degredation of listed heritage.
A verdict is expected by the extremity of 2025.
Cid says that successful the days aft Bolsonaro mislaid to Lula, helium was called to Braga Netto's bureau and handed a container of currency to administer to Bolsonaro supporters camped extracurricular the subject headquarters. Braga Netto denies the relationship and calls Cid a traitor.
The 2 men were summoned to the Supreme Court connected Tuesday for a confrontation, a measurement successful Brazilian ineligible process successful which the justice and some parties tin interrogate witnesses astir discrepancies successful their testimony.
The introspection was conducted down closed doors by bid of Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is seat the coup probe and did not supply much details astir the decision. Brazilian instrumentality allows closed tribunal hearings erstwhile matters of nationalist information oregon profoundly idiosyncratic matters are involved.
Braga Netto arrived astatine the tribunal successful the country’s superior of Brasilia from his jailhouse compartment successful Rio de Janeiro, wherever helium has been detained for obstructing investigations since December.
A staffer of the Supreme Court who observed the grounds told The Associated Press that some Braga Netto and Cid mostly stuck to their contradictory versions of events and avoided adjacent looking astatine each different contempt sitting other 1 another.
The staffer spoke connected information of anonymity arsenic they were not authorized to little the media.
In a heated exchange, the erstwhile defence curate changeable backmost that Cid was a “liar,” said Braga Netto’s lawyer, José Luis Oliveira.
Moraes' determination to telephone some men for questioning astatine the aforesaid clip signaled the judge’s deficiency of assurance successful their testimonies, ineligible experts and officials said.
The information that the 2 men appeared successful a civilian tribunal astatine each was a interruption from decades of impunity enjoyed by Brazilian elder officers.
No 1 successful Brazil has been sent to jailhouse connected charges related to the 1964-1985 subject dictatorship, dissimilar successful neighboring countries Argentina and Chile. And Bolsonaro, contempt facing a tangle of superior ineligible charges, remains the look of the country’s absorption to President Lula.
The past Brazilian wide to beryllium jailed was Argemiro de Assis Brasil, who was arrested successful 1964 for opposing the coup d’etat successful which the subject seized power.
Since the opening of the proceedings, members of the subject constitution person claimed the Supreme Court proceedings is an embarrassment to the equipped forces.
“Such questioning doesn’t assistance the equipped forces,” said Gen. Roberto Peternelli, a erstwhile congressman affiliated with Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party. “In my perspective, it ends up harming the country.”
The accused sought to debar civilian tribunal by seeking a proceedings astatine the country’s Superior Military Tribunal, wherever ineligible experts accidental they were much apt to find sympathy.
The subject court, which handles lone a fewer twelve cases a year, refused the cases.
“Members of the subject tribunal understood that, though perpetrated by subject personnel, these are not subject crimes,” said Alexandre Knopfholz, a instrumentality prof astatine UniCuritiba.
Millions of Brazilians person seen the lawsuit play retired connected TV implicit the past 2 years, from raids successful which national constabulary apprehension suspects and prehend documents to tribunal testimony.
Still, immoderate experts uncertainty that Cid and Braga Netto would extremity up serving retired afloat sentences down bars, adjacent if they are recovered guilty.
“This is the mediate of the probe. We should not hide that each coup-mongering subject antheral successful Brazilian past was pardoned,” said Fabio Victor, writer of a publication astir the links betwixt the subject and authorities aft Brazil's modulation to ideology successful 1985.
But helium acknowledged: “The information that generals person go defendants for an attempted coup does amusement immoderate evolution.”
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Hughes reported from Rio de Janeiro.
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