Argentine justice system orders arrest of 61 Brazilians for 2023 coup

Argentina's justice system has ordered the arrest of 61 Brazilians in the country who are facing prison sentences at home related to last year's coup attempt in Brasília, a judicial source told AFP on Friday.

The order, issued by Federal Judge Daniel Rafecas, was requested by Brazil's Supreme Court to round up the Brazilian nationals in Argentina who are subject to an extradition request and have been sentenced to prison terms, the source said.

A week after the inauguration of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on January 1, 2023, Brazilian police made hundreds of arrests of people suspected of involvement in the assault on the three seats of the state powers in Brasília, in support of the far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro.

On June 10 this year, Brazil reported that it had asked Argentina for help in locating 140 fugitives convicted of the coup.

"There are already two people detained," the judicial source said on Friday. The rest, "wherever in Argentina they are identified or located, will be detained and made available to the court to begin the extradition process."

The extradition sentence can be appealed before the Supreme Court, and, once the judicial process is over, "the procedure is passed on to the Executive Branch, which has a purely political authority to accept extradition or grant refugee status or some other recourse, and thus avoid extradition," he added.
 
Argentine President Javier Milei has distanced himself from Lula in favor of Bolsonaro.
 
In July, Milei snubbed the Mercosur summit in Asunción, which was heavily criticized by his peers from Paraguay, Uruguay, and Brazil, Argentina's main trading partner in the region. In parallel to the meeting of presidents, Milei had traveled to Brazil to participate in a conservative forum with Bolsonaro.
 
Argentina's government modified its law on refugee status in October to stop granting that benefit to foreigners who have been charged or convicted in their countries.
 
Milei will travel to the G20 summit that will be held on November 18 and 19 in Rio de Janeiro.

Two arrests

The two arrested so far are Joelton Gusmão de Oliveira, 47, and Rodrigo De Freitas Moro, 34.
 
Gusmão, sentenced to 17 years in prison, was arrested on Thursday in the city of La Plata, 60 kilometers east of Buenos Aires, when police officers on their patrol saw "a man acting suspiciously," a police statement said at the time, without giving further details of the episode.
 
The Brazilian portal UOL reported that he was captured when he tried to renew his refugee status at the immigration office.
 
De Fretias, sentenced to 14 years, was arrested on Friday, also in La Plata, when "he went to carry out immigration procedures," detailed the police of the province of Buenos Aires.
 
Both are convicted of attempted coup d'état, aggravated damage, deterioration of assets, armed criminal association, and violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, the police report added.
 
On January 8 last year, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed the presidential palace and the headquarters of Congress and the Supreme Court, demanding the intervention of the Armed Forces to depose Lula and denouncing alleged fraud in the elections.
 

– TIMES/AFP