WORLD NEWS | Ex-Brazilian minister arrested in connection with January 8 riots

Brasilia [Brazil]Jan 15 (ANI): Brazil’s former justice minister Anderson Torres was arrested after returning from the United States on Saturday, NHK World reported.

Torres allegedly deliberately did not prevent the capital attack even though he knew about the situation, the report said, adding that he had left the country before the unrest broke out.

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The report also said Torres, a close ally of former President Jair Bolsonaro, was defeated by current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva last October. He had been in charge of public safety in Brasilia when Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace were attacked in riots on Jan. 8.

More than 1,300 Bolsonaro supporters have been arrested for planning the Brasilia protests. NHK World Report, citing local police sources, said they had found a draft decree at Torres’ home to overturn the results of the October presidential election.

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Prosecutors are expected to question Torres about Bolsonaro’s involvement in the riots, NHK World reported, adding that Torres had said on Twitter that he had always acted ethically and legally and believed the truth would prevail.

Earlier, Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice Alessandro de Morais approved an investigation to determine whether Bolsonaro sparked the Jan. 8 riots in the country’s capital.

The investigation was approved at the request of the prosecutor general’s office, which cited a video Bolsonaro uploaded to Facebook two days after the unrest.

In the video, Bolsonaro claims that Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was not voted, but was chosen by the Supreme Court and Brazil’s electoral body, and now his supporters Shouting that they did not support Lula’s narrow victory.

Brazilian authorities are currently investigating who allowed Bolsonaro’s “extremist” followers to invade the Supreme Court, Congress and the presidential palace in an attempt to overturn October’s election results.

During the unrest, supporters of Brazil’s former president stormed the country’s parliament building, supreme court and presidential palace. The violations come a week after the inauguration of President da Silva, who defeated Bolsonaro in the Oct. 30 runoff. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the body of content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)