Former minister of the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government, General Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz gave a statement early this Wednesday afternoon (2) to the Federal Police, in Brasília.
The general was head of Bolsonaro’s Government Secretariat and was part of the investigation into the call.
For 45 minutes, investigators questioned the former minister about an alleged structure set up at Palácio do Planalto to monitor political opponents of the then government.
The PF also wanted to know whether the councilor (PL-RJ), who is being investigated in this investigation, ran “parallel Abin” in Planalto. The former president’s son denies it.
The general began to be interviewed at 2:30 pm, precisely at the time scheduled for the start of his testimony, which ended at 3:15 pm, and was soon released.
According to sources with access to the case, General Santos Cruz answered all of the PF’s questions.
The full questionnaire, however, is kept confidential.
The PF’s expectation is that, with this and other statements that will be collected throughout the month, it will be able to gather the final elements to conclude the investigation.
Son under investigation
In October last year, the former minister’s son was one of the targets of Operation “Last Mile”, which investigates alleged illegal monitoring carried out by employees of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin).
Caio Cesar dos Santos Cruz, according to the investigation, would be a representative of the Israeli company Cognyte, which sold the FirstMile system to the federal government at the end of former president Michel Temer’s administration. He gave a statement on the same day and denied wrongdoing.
