Lula chooses former interventionist to temporarily head GSI – 04/19/2023 – Politics

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) decided to nominate the former security interventionist in the Federal District Ricardo Cappelli to lead the GSI (Institutional Security Office) on an interim basis.

The decision was announced by the minister of Secom (Secretary of Communication of the Presidency of the Republic), Paulo Pimenta, to journalists, on Wednesday night (19), after the resignation of the GSI minister, general Gonçalves Dias.

Pimenta also announced the resignation of the current executive secretary of the GSI, Ricardo José Nigri, who had taken office on January 24, about two weeks after the coup attacks on the 8th of that month.

Cappelli is currently the executive secretary of the Ministry of Justice. He will assume the position of executive secretary of the GSI and, in the absence of a new minister, will lead the portfolio.

“The President of the Republic decided that, along with the removal of General GDias, there will also be the removal of the Executive Secretary of the GSI and Mr. Pepper to journalists.

Pimenta recalled that President Lula officially travels to Europe this Thursday (20th) and that on his return he will outline “a strategy and a definitive position on the future of the GSI”. The head of Secom, however, stated that there are no discussions regarding the extinction of the body.

“But the president understood that it was important that this space be occupied immediately. Cappelli did a very important job as an intervener here in public security in the Federal District. He was therefore invited and has already accepted the invitation and he will respond temporarily, as executive secretary, by the GSI”, added the minister.

Cappelli was appointed federal intervenor in public security in the Federal District on January 8, when supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro still occupied and vandalized the Planalto Palace, the National Congress and the Federal Supreme Court.

He acted as intervenor until the last day of January. During this period, he exonerated the entire team that had been appointed by former DF Public Security Secretary Anderson Torres, who had been Bolsonaro’s Minister of Justice.

The other change in the GSI involves a staff that had already been appointed by President Lula’s government, in a process of “debolsonarization” of the body. Ricardo José Nigri had been appointed to replace General Carlos José Russo Assumpção Penteado, who was a trusted man of the former head of the GSI in the Bolsonaro government, General Augusto Heleno.

Minister Gonçalves Dias had his resignation accepted by the president this Wednesday afternoon, worn out by the dissemination of images from the security cameras at the Planalto Palace, which put the performance of his body in check on January 8.

According to the recording, released by CNN Brasil, the vandals received water from the military and greeted GSI agents during the attacks. The general himself, called GDias by the government team, circulates around the third floor of the palace, in the anteroom of the office of the President of the Republic, while the acts took place on the floor below.