Chief of Institutional Security Threatens STF After Ruling to Seize Bolsonaro Cell Phone

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Augusto Heleno, Chief Minister of the GSI (Institutional Security Office), has directly threatened the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and criticized the request for the seizure of cell phones belonging to Jair Bolsonaro and his son, Carlos Bolsonaro, after a ruling by Justice Celso de Mello on the PGR (Prosecutor General’s Office) petition to examine them.

Heleno said the request is “inconceivable and to some extent unbelievable” in a statement sent to the press. The Minister said the measure “would be an affront to the Executive Branch’s highest authority and interference by another power in the President’s privacy and the country’s institutional security.”

The note from Minister Heleno also “warned that the seizure of mobile phones “would have unforeseeable consequences for national stability.”

Read more:

Supreme Court Chief Justice Celso de Mello requested the President’s deposition, as well as the search and seizure of his and his son Carlos Bolsonaro’s cell phones for investigation.

In orders issued on Thursday, May 21st, to the PGR, the Justice stressed that it is the State’s legal duty to promote the investigation into “the responsibility and substance of the criminal events reported by ‘any person of the people’.”

“The unavailability of the State’s investigation intention thus prevents the relevant public bodies from ignoring what is pointed out in the notice, which is why it is imperative that the events reported be ascertained, whoever the people allegedly involved may be, even if it is someone invested with authority in the hierarchy of the Republic, regardless of power (Legislative, Executive or Judiciary) to which such agent is bound,” wrote the STF Justice.