Brazil's federal police on Friday arrested seven senior military police officers accused of assisting right-wing rioters during the Jan. 8 attacks on government buildings in the capital, Brasilia.
Prosecutors say text messages obtained from the officers' mobile phones show Brasilia's military police were aware of the attackers' intentions. Not only did the officers fail to prevent the attacks, say prosecutors, but they assisted the rioters in their efforts to oust President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and reappoint former President Jair Bolsonaro in a coup.
Prosecutors say military officials knew that the protesters intended to attack the capital and spread false information about the legitimacy of the country's electronic voting system. Lula unseated Bolsonaro by a razor-thin margin in October, and even before his Jan. 1 inauguration, supporters of Bolsonaro were already camped around the army's headquarters in Brasilia, protesting Lula's victory and calling for the intervention of the armed forces.
Dozens of attackers have been arrested in connection with the riots as well as some former government officials, including Anderson Torres, Bolsonaro's former justice minister and public security secretary at the time.
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