RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 15 — A day after a man tried to use homemade bombs in a failed attack on Brazil’s Supreme Court, alarming the country as it readies to host a G20 summit, this is what we know:
What happened?
The blasts occurred on the esplanade in front of the Supreme Court building in Brasilia late Wednesday, around 7.30pm (2230 GMT).
First, fire and smoke could be seen emanating from the attacker’s car as it was parked near the square that connects the three branches of government in the capital: the court, the Congress, and the presidential palace.
Security camera footage then shows the man heading towards the court building and throwing an object at a statue of Justice a few meters in front of the entrance. The device did not explode.
As security guards ran toward him, the attacker backed away and left another apparent bomb on the ground, which also did not explode. He threw two more, one of which went off but did not hurt anyone.
He manipulated another bomb as he lay down on the ground, which exploded, killing him.
Who was the attacker?
Police identified the perpetrator as Francisco Wanderley Luiz, a 59-year-old locksmith from Brazil’s southern Santa Catarina state.
In 2020, he unsuccessfully ran as a candidate in local elections for the rightwing Liberal Party, which would later embrace ex-president Jair Bolsonaro as its figurehead.
Police investigators found that Luiz had moved to Brasilia several months ago, and had rented a house and a closed trailer in which they found more homemade explosives.
On his Facebook page — which was taken down after the failed attack — a message read “be careful when opening drawers, cupboards, shelves, storage rooms, etc. Start time 5:48 p.m. on 13/11/2024... the game ends on 16/11/2024. Good luck,” according to media reports.
What was the motive?
Police said Thursday they did not yet know the motive behind the attempted attack, which they believed to be solely carried out by Luiz.
However, they were investigating possible links to a January 8, 2023 insurrection by thousands of Bolsonaro supporters in Brasilia, who stormed the Supreme Court, the Congress and the presidential palace in what authorities are probing as an attempted coup.
Luiz was in Brasilia on that date, but officials have not established whether he was among the insurrectionists who were acting together against the return to power of leftwing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Inside Luiz’s residence, police found a message dedicated to a woman charged over the January 2023 events, Debora Rodrigues.
Rodrigues was arrested for vandalising the same statue Luiz had targeted with one of his homemade bombs.
“Please, don’t waste lipstick! It’s for making women beautiful. With that shitty statue you use TNT,” the message read, according to photos published in the Brazilian media. — AFP
