Fugitive Bolsonarist tries to take office with Lula – 08/15/2023 – Politics

Blogger and influencer Wellington Macedo, one of the three defendants accused of trying to explode a bomb in a truck near Brasília airport on December 24, tried to register to cover the inauguration of Paraguayan President Santiago Peña, in Asunción, this Tuesday (15). President Lula (PT) was at the event.

The Bolsonarist made the request six days before the event, as an independent journalist, through El Pueblo Podcast. Warned by the Brazilian government, however, the Paraguayan government did not deliver the credential.

Macedo, who claims to be innocent and the target of persecution, has been on the run since the attack, after breaking his electronic ankle bracelet and leaving the Federal District.

By the end of April this year, as he himself stated in an interview with Sheet, was hiding on the farm of a rural producer he met in the coup camp set up in front of the Army headquarters in the federal capital, after Lula’s victory at the polls. “I’m pretty isolated, I’m far away,” he said over the phone at the time.

Macedo held a position in the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government, acting as an advisor to the then Minister of Women, Family and Human Rights and now Senator Damares Alves (Republicanos-DF), from February to December 2019, with a gross salary of BRL 10,373.

Two years later, in 2021, he was arrested by order of Minister Alexandre de Moraes (STF), on the charge of encouraging anti-democratic acts on that 7th of September.

He left prison 42 days later and began to be monitored by an electronic anklet, including when he ran for federal deputy for the PTB of São Paulo in 2022, adopting the slogan of “political prisoner” — he had only 1,118 votes.

On Christmas Eve, he drove the car that transported the bomb from the Bolsonarist camp to the Brasília airport, according to investigations by the Civil Police of the Federal District.

Macedo does not deny that he was driving the vehicle, but says that he did not know about the object’s existence or the plan to detonate it and claims to be the target of persecution by the Judiciary.

According to the police, the artifact was prepared by businessman George Washington de Oliveira and placed in a truck at the airport by fellow Bolsonarist Alan Diego dos Santos e Sousa.

The three became defendants in January, after the DF Court of Justice accepted the Public Ministry’s complaint, and only Macedo remains at large.

A Sheet he stated that on the day of the incident he was at the camp, recording videos for the production of a documentary, when he was approached by Alan Diego, who asked him for a ride to the airport. The two would have met two days earlier, in a tent where protesters from Pará were.

Macedo says that, when they arrived near the airport, Alan Diego pulled the bomb out of a bag that was in the back seat and, as they approached the truck, asked him to slow down. With part of his body sticking out the window, he placed the artifact on a parked vehicle tire, according to his version.

Some time later, the man picked up a small remote control to detonate the explosive. Macedo says he felt intimidated, but questioned: “I said: ‘Man, why did you do this to me? You don’t even know me. You see me at the HQ, you know I’m being persecuted and you get me involved in something like that?'”. Afterwards, he left Alan Diego at a hotel in Brasilia.

Asked why he didn’t call the police, he said he was afraid of being arrested. The alert was given by the truck driver, who noticed that a box had been placed in the vehicle. The small dynamite with a timer was removed by the bomb squad, who deactivated the device while still in place.

Arrested on the same day, businessman George Washington told the Civil Police that he planned with demonstrators to install explosives in at least two locations in the federal capital days before Lula’s inauguration.

The objective would be to “initiate the chaos” that would lead to the “decreation of a state of siege in the country”, which could “cause the intervention of the Armed Forces”.

The three suspects respond in court for the crime of explosion, characterized by “exposing the life, physical integrity or property of others to danger, by means of an explosion, throwing or simple placement of a dynamite device or substance with similar effects”. The expected penalty is three to six years in prison and a fine.

Lawyer Aécio de Paula, responsible for Macedo’s defense, argued to the Court that, in depositions, both George Washington and Alan Diego exempted their client from the attempted attack.

He also stated that Macedo had not even met the Bolsonarist businessman who provided the bomb. “It’s not a crime to give someone a ride. The Public Ministry failed to individualize [as condutas]”, he stated.

Macedo is still being investigated on suspicion of participating in depredations in Brasília, including an attempt to invade the Federal Police building on December 12, the day of Lula’s diplomacy. The blogger says that he only recorded images of the acts of violence and that he does not defend coup agendas. On social networks, however, he made calls for protests and allusions to a possible military coup.

In April, he said he would step back from politics: “I’m very tired, I want to focus on my defence.” Until he asked to participate in the Paraguayan presidential inauguration.