January riots in Brasilia: 137 detainees are released

A judge of Brazil’s Supreme Court (STF) on Tuesday ordered the release of 137 people accused of participating in the assault on several places of power in Brasilia on January 8, pending their trial.

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This release is subject to several conditions: wearing the electronic bracelet, cancellation of the passport, prohibition to use social networks, to carry firearms or to leave the house in the evenings and on weekends.

“Judge Alexandre de Moraes considered that they could remain free pending their trial (…) insofar as the investigation did not show that they were financiers (of the attacks) nor that they were among the main attackers,” the STF said in a statement.

The magistrate also took into account the fact that “most of them have a clean criminal record and young children”.

A total of 803 suspects are still behind bars awaiting trial and 603 have been granted conditional release, the STF said.

On January 8, thousands of individuals refusing the defeat of the far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro vandalized the Presidential Palace, the Congress and the Supreme Court, a week after the inauguration of the head of state of left Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The attackers easily breached the security cordon to ransack everything in their path, including priceless works of art.

Lula won the October poll by a narrow margin, with 50.9% of the vote, against 49.1% for the incumbent.

The violence in Brasilia recalled the invasion of the Capitol two years earlier in the United States, by supporters of Donald Trump refusing to accept his defeat against current American President Joe Biden.

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