A Brazilian top court justice ordered an investigation into former President Jair Bolsonaro for the alleged incitement of riots, escalating the political fallout from the insurrection at the nation’s capital on Jan. 8.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes accepted a request presented late on Friday by Brazilian prosecutors, who cited a video containing voter fraud conspiracy theories posted by the former president on his Facebook account on Jan. 10, and deleted a few hours later. The video echoed allegations long repeated by the conservative leader before losing the Oct. 30 runoff, and now by his supporters who do not accept the narrow victory of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Some of those supporters stormed Brasilia one week after Lula’s inauguration, ransacking congress, the presidential palace and the top court in a shocking event not seen in the country for decades.
Moraes, who has led investigations into the spread of fake news that questioned the integrity of Brazil’s electronic voting system, ordered Meta Platforms Inc., Facebook’s parent company, to preserve the video and to supply the court with information about how many people it reached before being deleted. The justice added he will decide later on a request for Bolsonaro to be questioned, considering the former president remains out of the country.
A lawyer for Bolsonaro, who’s vacationing in Florida since Dec. 30, said the former president has always repudiated illegal and criminal acts, including the depredation of government buildings in Brasilia.
“He never had any relation nor participation in these spontaneous social movements,” lawyer Frederick Wassef said in a statement.
Justice Moraes is also leading an investigation into the role of fake news in Bolsonaro’s presidential win in 2018 and has been the target of repeated online attacks by right-wing groups. His expedited decision to include the former president in the investigation over Brasilia’s riots is likely to further fuel political tensions in the country.
Bolsonaro’s recent actions were the latest in a series of occasions when he acted “in a criminal way and against institutions,” Moraes wrote in his decision.
Bolsonaro, who lost the election to Lula by a margin of less than two percentage points, will now have to decide whether to return to Brazil to face the investigation or remain abroad. He told CNN Brasil earlier this week that he had initially intended to stay in the U.S. until the end of the month but will cut his vacation short to return.
