The main target of a bomber who killed himself while attempting to attack Brazil’s supreme court was the justice leading the key investigations into the attempted coup of 8 January last year, when supporters of the former president Jair Bolsonaro ransacked the buildings to protest against his election defeat, police have said.
The explosions outside the court on Wednesday took place just five days before the G20 heads of state are due to meet in Rio de Janeiro, which will be followed by a state visit to Brasília, the capital, by the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.
Police identified the bomber as Francisco Wanderley Luiz, a 59-year-old locksmith from the southern state of Santa Catarina, where he had run for city council in Rio do Sol in 2020, receiving only 98 votes.
The federal police director general, Andrei Rodrigues, said on Thursday that the failed attack was being investigated as a “terrorist act” and that the main target was believed to be Alexandre de Moraes, who is overseeing investigations into the 2023 attempted coup and crimes attributed to Bolsonaro.
Moraes is also known for his public clash with Elon Musk after suspending the social media platform X in Brazil for its refusal to suspend accounts accused of promoting hate speech and anti-democratic content.
Rodrigues said Luiz’s ex-wife said her ex-husband had told her that he would kill “Moraes and anyone else who was with him at the time”.
The director general said her testimony was “very clear” in identifying the judge as the target, but there were “other social media messages, including ones sent [by Luiz] to the court itself, threatening the entire tribunal”.
He added that these threats highlight the seriousness of the attack, which he said must be treated “as a terrorist act and a violent action aimed at bringing down the rule of law”.
Earlier, Moraes had said the explosions could not be treated as an “isolated incident” but rather as something that started “back when the ‘hate cabinet’ [as the pro-Bolsonaro mobs became known] began to spread hate speech against institutions, against the supreme court”.
The justice also criticised a proposed amnesty for those convicted of the attempted coup, which pro-Bolsonaro congress officials are trying to pass in congress.
“There is no possibility of peace with an amnesty for criminals … impunity will generate more aggression, as it did yesterday,” said Moraes.
The first of two explosions went off at about 7.30pm local time (2230 GMT) on Wednesday evening in a car park near the court building and a second blast came seconds later in front of the court, where Luiz’s body was found.
Security camera footage released by the TV network GloboNews showed a man walking up to a statue in the courtyard in front of the court and throwing an object at the statue.
He is then approached by a guard. The man then steps back, lights a device, and throws it towards the court building, but it does not appear to explode. He lights another one and throws it, resulting in an explosion under the building’s awning.
The man then kneels, lights a third device, lies down, places the bomb under his head, and it detonates.
The explosions took place around the Three Powers Plaza, a square in Brasília connecting the principal buildings of Brazil’s three branches of the federal government: the supreme court, the Congress and the presidential palace.
The president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was not in the palace at the time of the explosions, a spokesperson said.
On his social media, Luiz had frequently attacked the supreme court and “communists”, often posting images of himself with Brazil’s flag and wearing the national football team shirt – symbols embraced by the far right in recent years.
Moments before the attack, he posted on Facebook: “Shall we play? Federal Police, you have 72 hours to defuse the bomb at the house of those communist scum.”
He ran for city council in 2020 for Bolsonaro’s current party.
In a post on X, Bolsonaro wrote: “I regret and condemn any act of violence, like the tragic episode yesterday at the Plaza of the Three Powers,” stating that it was an “isolated incident, and, from what appears, caused by mental health issues of the person who, unfortunately, ended up passing away”.
This is not the first attempt at a bomb attack in Brazil’s capital. On 24 December 2022 – just days before the riots – police discovered and defused an explosive device in a truck loaded with aviation fuel near Brasília’s international airport. Three Bolsonaro supporters were identified and convicted. One of them admitted that the goal was to prevent Lula’s inauguration.
It is still unclear whether Luiz acted alone or had assistance. He is believed to have been living in a town near Brasília since July, and explosives were also found at the house where he had been staying.
Police deployed a bomb squad with an explosive disposal robot to the square to investigate the blasts. According to the police, there was a belt with unactivated explosives on Luiz’s body, along with a detonator. In total, the police said, six explosive devices were deactivated in the Plaza area.
