Director of Federal Highway Police, Silvinei Vasques walks before a press conference at the Headquarters of the Federal Highway Police in Brasilia, Brazil, October 28, 2022. REUTERS/Adriano Machado Purchase Licensing Rights , opens new tab
SAO PAULO, Dec 26 (Reuters) – Brazil Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes on Friday ordered the preventive detention of the former head of the country’s federal highway police, who was captured in Paraguay, according to a court document seen by Reuters and information from two people familiar with the matter.
Silvinei Vasques, who served under former President Jair Bolsonaro, was caught while trying to board a plane at Asuncion airport in neighboring Paraguay, in an attempt to reach El Salvador, after breaking a court-ordered ankle monitor.
Vasques was recently sentenced to 24 years and six months in prison for his role in a 2023 attempted coup, the same incident for which Bolsonaro is now serving a 27-year sentence for orchestrating the plot.
The former cop, who was not yet in jail, apparently broke his electronic ankle monitor while in Brazil’s southern state of Santa Catarina, prompting security alerts at border checkpoints, according to the Supreme Court document.
Vasques, caught with a fake Paraguayan passport, planned the escape using a rented car and even took his dog with him, the document said, adding that the attempt to flee warranted converting precautionary measures like the electronic tag into preventive detention.
Reached by Reuters, Vasques’ attorney did not comment on his client´s attempt to flee.
Vasques is not the first official convicted over the 2023 coup attempt who has tried to flee Brazil. In November, the Supreme Court ordered the arrest of the former intelligence agency director Alexandre Ramagem, who left the country in September and has since been living in the United States.
That same month, Moraes ordered Bolsonaro be detained after the former president tried to remove his court-ordered ankle monitor using a soldering iron. Bolsonaro was then under house arrest.
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