The police at Brazil arrested on Tuesday five people suspected of plotting to kill Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, shortly before he was sworn in as president.

According to local media, four of those arrested are soldiers and one is a police officer.

The five arrested were allegedly involved in a plot to assassinate President-elect Lula and Vice President Geraldo Alcmin on December 15, 2022, about two weeks before the presidential inauguration.

Lula was elected in October 2022, narrowly defeating far-right Jer Bolsonaro, who has never publicly accepted defeat.

A week after his inauguration LulaBolsonaro supporters stormed Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace and vandalized the buildings, and thousands of arrests followed.

Investigations have since been launched into the events of January 8, 2023, as well as earlier alleged attempts to prevent Lula’s inauguration.

However, this is the first time police have revealed an alleged assassination attempt on Lula. After news of the arrests broke, Social Communications Minister Paulo Pimenta said the alleged plot to kill Lula and Alkmin had almost gone ahead.

“It was just details that prevented her,” said the Minister.

THE Brazilian news website G1 he said that what was particularly disturbing was that four of those arrested were active members of the military and the fifth was an active member of the police.

The French news agency cited a federal police source as saying the four soldiers were arrested in Rio, where they were involved in the security operation for the G20 leaders’ meeting currently taking place in the Brazilian city.

According to G1, the four soldiers, who were trained in special forces, are accused of participating in a criminal organization that planned against Lula.

Brazil’s federal police said in a statement that, as it emerged after its investigations, the criminal organization used a high level of technical-military knowledge to plan, coordinate and execute illegal actions in November and December 2022.

According to the statement, during Operation Green and Yellow Dagger, as it was named after the colors of the Brazilian flag, the conspirators had not only planned to assassinate the president-elect and vice president, but also intended to capture and execute a member of Supreme Court once the coup was successful.

The conspirators had discussed how best to “neutralize” Lula and reportedly settled on poisoning the president-elect.
The arrests were made in the early hours of Tuesday local time and were authorized by Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes.