Argentina ordered the arrest of Bolsonaro’s supporters

Argentine courts have decided to arrest 61 Brazilians who were threatened with imprisonment for their participation in the riots in Brasilia last year, writes UNN with reference to the BBC.

Details

In January 2023, supporters of Brazil’s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro stormed Congress in an attempt to topple the new left-wing government led by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, commonly known as Lula.

Hundreds of rioters were arrested, charged and released on bail. Some were convicted.

But others fled to Argentina to avoid punishment, especially after the far-right politician Javier Millay was elected president in December 2023.

Judge Daniel Rafekas said the warrants would apply to those who had “convictions with a certain prison term,” according to Brazil’s Globo newspaper.

In June of this year, the Brazilian authorities sent an extradition request to Argentina, asking for help in extraditing more than 140 participants in the riots. But many in Brazil doubted whether Miley’s government would agree. The Argentine president is a friend of Bolsonaro and was an ardent critic of Lula, the newspaper said.

However, in October, Argentina revoked political asylum for people convicted of crimes in their homeland.

And on Friday, a judge at Argentina’s Federal Court ruled that arrest warrants should be issued, citing a request from Brazil’s Supreme Court.

Local media also reported that local police on Friday arrested one fugitive in the city of La Plata, about 60 km from the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires.

It is not clear whether the location of other participants in the riots is known.

Addition

Brazil’s government believes the January 2023 riots were part of a coup attempt orchestrated by Bolsonaro after he lost a hotly contested presidential election the previous October. He denies any involvement. Less than a week after Lula’s inauguration in January 2023, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed the Congress building, the Supreme Court and the Presidential Palace in Brasilia.

The arrest warrants were issued just two days after another attack in Brasilia’s Three Powers Square, where a former political candidate carried out a suicide attack outside the Supreme Court.

The police named the man Francisco Wanderley Luis, who unsuccessfully ran for the council from Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party.

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