Man arrested over bomb threat says there was plan for state of siege

In a statement to the Civil Police, George Washington de Oliveira Sousa, the man arrested on Saturday (24) on suspicion of having placed an explosive at Brasília International Airport, said that the intention of him and the group he was with was to lead to military intervention and the enactment of a state of siege to “prevent the establishment of communism in Brazil”.

The 54-year-old suspect was arrested after the Civil Police of the Federal District found an explosive in a truck in the airport area. Five more explosives and ammunition were found in a rented apartment in Brasília.

In her statement to the police, to which the CNN had access, Sousa says that he is from Pará and that he went to the federal capital after the second round of the elections, carrying several weapons to join the group that remained camped in front of the Army Headquarters (QG) in protest to the election of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

His intention, he said, “was to participate in the protests” and “wait for the Armed Forces to take up arms and overthrow communism”.

“Almost a month later nothing happened and so I decided to draw up a plan with the demonstrators at the Army HQ to provoke the intervention of the armed forces and the decree of a state of siege to prevent the establishment of communism in Brazil”, said Sousa.

The plans, according to him, were discussed between December 22nd and 23rd and included exploding a bomb at Brasília Airport and, subsequently, making an anonymous complaint about the presence of two other explosives in the departure area.

Another suggestion was also to install a pump at the Taguatinga power substation “to cause a lack of electricity and start the chaos that would trigger the declaration of a state of siege”, in his words.

The bomb, he claimed, was built by him with dynamite also belonging to him. The man from Pará saw on TV that the police found the explosives at the airport earlier.

Among the weapons that Souza said he had taken with him from Pará to Brasília were, in addition to the dynamite, two shotguns, two revolvers, three pistols, a rifle and more than a thousand pieces of ammunition.

He claimed to have license to own all of them except the dynamites. “In 2021 I got my licenses to acquire weapons (CR and CAC) and since then I have spent R$ 160,000 on the purchase” of weapons, he said.

“What motivated me were the words of President Bolsonaro, who always emphasized the importance of civil armament, saying the following: ‘an armed people will never be enslaved’.”