General Gonçalves Dias, the head of Brazil’s Institutional Security Office (GSI), has been fired from the cabinet after leaked surveillance footage showed him present during the January 8 riots in Brasília, when hordes of pro-Bolsonaro demonstrators stormed and ransacked the buildings that house Brazil’s three branches of government.
Surveillance footage from within Brazil’s presidential palace on January 8, leaked to CNN Brasil, shows Gen. Dias and members of the GSI walking the halls and even greeting rioters during the attack.
Gen. Dias is first seen in the surveillance footage at 4:29 pm, walking outside the presidential office on the palace’s third floor. The storming of the building by pro-Bolsonaro rioters had begun about 40 minutes earlier. Minutes later, Gen. Dias is seen shepherding rioters out of the presidential office and toward the building’s stairwells.
GSI staff are also seen in the leaked footage leaving their posts before the presidential palace is invaded. Shortly after the palace is stormed, a GSI military official can be seen giving a thumbs-up gesture to a rioter and handing a group of vandals bottled water to drink. CNN Brasil chose to reveal only the identity of Gen. Dias, blurring the faces of other GSI military officials.
In a statement, the GSI said the footage showed security personnel “seeking to evacuate the third and fourth floors” of the presidential palace. It added, however, that “the conduct of the GSI agents involved is being investigated internally” and that if they are found to have acted improperly, they will be held accountable.
Earlier today, Gen. Dias canceled his participation in a hearing of the lower house’s Public Security Committee. Packed with pro-Bolsonaro lawmakers, the committee had invited Gen. Dias to attend and answer questions about his department’s conduct during the January 8 riots. Half an hour before the committee session was scheduled to start, lawmakers received a doctor’s note explaining that Gen. Dias would not appear due to “an acute clinical condition that requires medication and observation.”
A source from within Brazil’s intelligence agency — which was under GSI control until earlier this year — tells The Brazilian Report that Gen. Dias’s presence in the presidential palace during the riot was “definitely not normal.”
“He should have been fired before these images came to light,...
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