Brazilian police question some 1,000 detainees after rampage in capital

Protesters, supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro, stand on the roof of the National Congress building after they stormed it, in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 8. AP-Yonhap

Brazilian police on Tuesday were questioning some 1,000 protesters held in an overcrowded gymnasium in the capital after anti-government mobs sacked public buildings over the weekend, as the country's new government worked to overcome the crisis.

Most of the supporters of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro were detained on Monday as troops dismantled a camp in Brasilia from which demonstrators set off on Sunday to storm Brazil's Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace.

Protesters at the camp outside army headquarters had called for a military coup to overturn the October election in which leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva narrowly defeated Bolsonaro, who made baseless suggestions of a rigged election.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is running investigations of the "anti-democratic" protests, vowed in a speech on Tuesday to combat the "terrorists" calling for a coup.

"Democracy will prevail and Brazilian institutions will not bend," said Moraes at the swearing-in of a new head of the federal police.

Yet the challenge of carrying out such an enormous criminal investigation into a loosely organized protest movement in the first weeks of a new government was already beginning to show.

Roughly 1,000 detainees from the protest camp were held for questioning at a police gymnasium where they slept on the ground, some wrapped in Brazilian flags, and complained to a Reuters journalist that they were being held indefinitely and poorly fed. They sang and took selfies with their phones, video posted on social media showed.

Opposition Senator Marcos do Val, who has denounced the Brasilia riots as a blunder for the political right, told journalists outside the gym that many of those detained "are paying for being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Around 200 other demonstrators were under arrest and awaiting charges in a penal facility for their role in Sunday's rampage, which vandalized some of the capital's most iconic buildings in the worst attack on Brazilian democracy in decades.

Government lawyers asked Moraes to order cellphone carriers and social media platforms to store information that could place users in the areas of the rioting on Sunday as authorities try to identify the organizers and their financial sources.

A Brazilian flag is seen through broken glass following the anti-democratic riots, at Planalto Palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Jan. 10. Reuters-Yonhap

'Nothing was done'

Investigations may also sprawl far beyond Brasilia. Pro-Bolsonaro militants discussed on social media their plans to disrupt highways and oil refineries to cause economic chaos in synch with their storming of the capital.

Brazilian energy company Eletrobras is investigating whether the collapse of two transmission towers was related to Sunday's violence in Brasilia, according to two sources familiar with the probe.

Eletrobras did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Its subsidiary, Eletronorte, released a statement on Monday about a fallen tower connecting rural communities in northern Brazil to the central grid, with "signs of sabotage."

Financial markets have largely shrugged off the uprising in Latin America's largest economy, with the Bovespa benchmark stock index up 0.7 percent on Tuesday and Brazil's currency, the real, rebounding almost 1percent against the U.S. dollar.

But the violence stunned Lula's government, which has been in office for barely a week, and could delay economic policy announcements that were planned for this week by an administration eager to show results.

Lula's chief of staff, Rui Costa, said the government was back to work and policy decisions would be made on time.

On Monday night, Lula, who took office on Jan. 1, met with the head of the Supreme Court, congressional leaders and state governors in a show of national unity to condemn the riots. They visited the ransacked Supreme Court building, which was the site most damaged by the pro-Bolsonaro rioters.

Lula accused the rioters of trying to overthrow democracy and questioned why the army had not discouraged calls for a military coup.

"People were openly calling for a coup outside the barracks, and nothing was done. No general lifted a finger to tell them they could not do that," the 77-year-old president said. He accused some security forces of being complicit with rioters.

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva speaks during a meeting with Governors at Planalto Palace in Brasilia, a day after supporters of Brazil's far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro invaded the Congress, presidential palace, and Supreme Court, Jan. 9. AFP-Yonhap

The Brazilian army did not respond to a request for comment on Lula's criticism.

Bolsonaro, who flew to Florida 48 hours before his term ended, was admitted to a hospital in the U.S. state. He told CNN Brasil he may cut short his stay there due to his medical issues, returning to Brazil before the end of the month.

His son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, denied on Tuesday that the former president was responsible for the riots.

"Since the election result he's been silent, licking his wounds, virtually incommunicado," he said in a session in the Senate.

Public prosecutors asked on Tuesday for a federal audit court to freeze the ex-president's assets in light of Sunday's vandalism, according to a report on the website of CNN Brasil ― a move outside the traditional scope of that court. (Reuters)