Brazil charges dozens in pro-Bolsonaro riot; more expected

BRASILIA —  The office of Brazil’s prosecutor-general has presented its first charges against some of the hundreds of people who authorities say stormed government buildings in an effort to overturn former President Jair Bolsonaro’s loss in the October election.

The prosecutors in the recently formed group to combat anti-democratic acts also have requested that the 39 defendants charged in the ransacking of Congress be imprisoned as a preventive measure and that $7.7 million of their assets be frozen to help cover the damage.

The defendants have been charged with armed criminal association, violent attempt to subvert the democratic state of law, staging a coup and damage to public property, the prosecutor general’s office said in a written statement Monday night. Their identities have not yet been released.

More than a thousand people were arrested on the day of the Jan. 8 riot, which bore strong similarities to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Donald Trump supporters who tried to overturn the then-president’s election loss.

Rioters who stormed through the Brazilian Congress, the presidential palace and the Supreme Federal Court in the capital, Brasilia, sought to have the armed forces intervene and overturn Bolsonaro’s loss to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The rioters “attempted, with the use of violence and serious threat, to abolish the democratic rule of law, preventing or restricting the exercise of constitutional powers,” according to an excerpt of charges included in a statement. “The ultimate objective of the attack ... was the installation of an alternative government regime.”

The attackers were not charged with terrorism because under Brazilian law such a charge must involve xenophobia or prejudice based on race, ethnicity or religion.

The prosecutor-general’s office sent its charges to the Supreme Federal Court after the Senate’s president, Rodrigo Pacheco, last week provided a list of people accused of rampaging through Congress. Additional rioters are expected to be charged.