Brazil’s Supreme Court rules the release of former aide-de-camp Jair Bolsonaro

This Friday, Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court (STF) ordered the release of former aide-de-camp to former President Jair Bolsonaro, Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid. The decision was made by Judge Alexandre de Moraes, who is leading the cases against Bolsonaro and his allies in the STF.

The soldier’s release comes exactly one year after his first arrest, on May 3, 2023, for his participation in Jair Bolsonaro’s plan to stage a coup in 2022 after losing that year’s presidential election to Lula da Silva and also, among other charges, that he planned and executed the falsification of the former president’s vaccination record, fraudulently including a Covid-19 vaccine in the document so that the ruler could enter the United States. Released in November 2023 after entering into a cooperation agreement with the justice system in which he confessed to all his crimes and denounced abuses allegedly committed by Bolsonaro, Mauro Cid was arrested again on March 22 this year after he was caught during a telephone conversation. telling an ally that he entered into an agreement with the court only under duress from the Federal Police, who forced him to lie in order to harm the former president.

Now Alexandre de Moraes has ordered the release of the lieutenant colonel, who for four years faithfully carried out the legal and, as we now know, illegal orders of Jair Bolsonaro, after officially abandoning the soldier. In an interview with STF, Mauro Cid denied that the federal police or anyone else forced him to accept the plea agreement, saying that the conversation that was caught was mere outburst and bravado towards a friend, just like the charges he made in that same conversation, classifying Alexander de Moraes as a dictator who flouted laws and considered himself the owner of Brazil.

After the denial, Moraes accepted the arguments of Mauro Cid’s lawyers and ordered his release, which should happen by Friday evening. In the new agreement that led to his release, Sid pledged to continue to cooperate with justice and clarify clauses in his previous agreement that the Federal Police’s own investigation had shown were incomplete or inconsistent with what actually happened. with the officer’s lawyers occurred due to simple forgetfulness or confusion on the part of their client, motivated by the stress of their situation after the fall of the Bolsonaro government.