Brazilian judge orders arrest of Bolsonaro’s ex-minister after Brasilia rampage

After supporters of right-wing former President Jair Bolsonaro went on the rampage through government buildings on Tuesday, a judge on the Brazilian Supreme Court ordered the arrest of the capital’s most recent public security chief.

Anderson Torres, who served as Bolsonaro’s justice minister before taking over this month as the public security director for Brasilia, where tens of thousands of protesters vandalized the Supreme Court, Congress, and presidential offices on Sunday, was taken into custody by Justice Alexandre de Moraes.

Torres, who was fired from his position on Sunday, had just returned from a trip to Florida and was not present in the city when the disturbances broke out. He promised to return to Brazil from Orlando, where he was vacationing with his family, and hand himself in to law enforcement in a tweet on Tuesday.

Fabio Augusto Vieira, the head of the military police in Brasilia and one of the authorities in charge of guarding the main government buildings in Brasilia, was also the target of Moraes’ request for his arrest. Vieira could not be reached for comment right away.

The specifics of the accusations made against the two were not immediately clear.

The inability to ensure that the right security troops were in place was noted by Moraes in the arrest warrant. Additionally, he mentioned their approval of the entry into the city of over 100 buses carrying Bolsonaro supporters and their failure to disperse a camp where the former president’s followers had been camped out for months.