Former Bolsonaro justice minister detained over Brazil riots

• Anderson Torres oversaw security during last week’s takeover of federal buildings in Brasilia.
• He was on vacation in Florida.
• Torres says he will return to Brazil to report himself.

Anderson Torres, a former minister of justice and public security in Brazil who oversaw security during last week’s takeover of federal buildings in Brasilia, has been detained on suspicion of “omission” and “connivance.”

Upon arriving back in Brazil on Saturday from a vacation in Florida, the same US state that former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro had visited after losing the election to current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Torres—who served as Bolsonaro’s justice minister—was detained.

When police searched his residence this week, the ex-minister claimed on Thursday that the evidence they produced was misinterpreted.

Torres’ arrest was mandated on Tuesday by Justice Alexandre de Moraes of the Brazilian Supreme Court.

The specific accusations were not immediately clear, but Moraes noted Torres’ alleged “omission” and “connivance.”

The authorities would give Torres until Monday to return to Brazil or he would face extradition, according to Flavio Dino, the new justice minister.

Torres said on Twitter on Tuesday that he will break his vacation and go back to Brazil to report himself in after becoming aware of Moraes’ detention order.

Dino also verified the discovery of a draught decree at Torres’ residence that suggested emergency measures for the potential “correction” of the October election, which Lula narrowly won.

At the bottom of the draught decree, which is both undersigned and undated, is Bolsonaro’s name. The authorship, according to Dino, is unknown.

Torres said on Twitter the document was “likely” part of a pile of papers that were destined to be destroyed, adding that the contents of the draft had been taken “out of context” to “feed false narratives” against him.

The Supreme Court has agreed to open an investigation into Bolsonaro for allegedly encouraging the protests.

Prosecutors will investigate Bolsonaro for possible “instigation and intellectual authorship of the anti-democratic acts that resulted in vandalism and violence in Brasilia last Sunday,” the top public prosecutor’s office said in a statement on Friday.

Two days before the inauguration, Bolsonaro went for the United States, where he is still at now, and never acknowledged Lula’s victory in public.

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