According to a court source who spoke to AFP on Friday, Argentina’s legal system has ordered the arrest of 61 Brazilian nationals who are facing domestic prison sentences in connection with the coup attempt in Brasilia last year.
According to the source, Brazil’s Supreme Court asked Judge Daniel Rafecas to issue the order in order to gather up Brazilian nationals in Argentina who have been given prison sentences and are the target of an extradition request.
Hundreds of people have been taken into custody by Brazilian authorities in connection with the January 2023 attack on the nation’s Supreme Court, Congress, and presidential palace by thousands of followers of former far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro.
They claimed electoral fraud and called for the military to step in and remove Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the recently elected left-wing president.
Brazil announced on June 10 that it had requested Argentina’s help in locating more than 140 fugitives linked to the assault.
“Two people have already been arrested,” the judicial source said Friday.
“Wherever they are identified or located in Argentina, they will be arrested and turned over to judicial authorities to begin the extradition process.”
Extradition decisions can be appealed to the Supreme Court. Once that process plays out, the matter passes to the executive branch, which can accept the extradition, grant refugee status, or take other recourse, thereby avoiding extradition.
However in October, Argentina amended its refugee law so that people accused or convicted of crimes in their native countries would no longer be eligible.
Argentine President Javier Milei has meanwhile distanced himself from Lula, expressing favor for strongman Bolsonaro, whose supporters carried out the attacks.
The first suspect to be arrested in Argentina was Joelton Gusmao de Oliveira, a 47-year-old man sentenced in absentia in Brazil in February to 17 years in prison.
He was apprehended Thursday while trying to renew his refugee status in the city of La Plata, local media reported.
The second, Rodrigo De Freitas Moro, 34, was arrested in the same city while trying to carry out immigration procedures, local police said.
The two men were found guilty of an attempted coup d’etat, aggravated damage, armed criminal association and violent suppression of the democratic rule of law.
