The legal team of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday asked the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) not to include the draft of the coup decree in an investigation into his re-election campaign.
The former president’s defenders have asked for the TSE’s decision to be reconsidered, alleging that the draft is «an apocryphal document, impertinent and with no connection whatsoever» with the process. The lawyers have indicated that this document has been erroneously attributed to Bolsonaro’s office without actually being his.
Lawyer Tarcisio Vieira de Carvalho has stressed that the decree «was not found in the possession of the investigated, nor signed by it», while «there is no evidence or news that it has been brought to the attention of any authority».
«It was never published, nor will it be, since the mandate of the first investigated as president of the Republic ended on December 31, 2022,» Vieira has asserted.
The TSE included this Monday the document found in the home of former Minister of Justice and National Security Ander Torres in Bolsonaro’s file, who was given three days to pronounce on its contents.
Magistrate Benedito Gonçalves explained that the inclusion serves to «densify the arguments that evidence the occurrence of abuses of political power aimed at discrediting the electoral justice and the electoral process, with a view to altering the outcome of the election».
The investigation opened in the TSE accuses the former president of abuse of political power and misuse of the media for spreading falsehoods about the management of the electronic voting machines in the elections.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
