Man blows himself up outside Supreme Court in Brasilia after 'failed attack'

Brazilian police speak of a “failed attack”. On Wednesday evening, two explosions rang out around 7:30 p.m. near the Supreme Court which is opposite the presidential palace in Brasilia. A car parked near the building first exploded. An individual then approached the Federal Supreme Court before trying to enter, in vain, before blowing himself up in front of the entrance. Police conducting a patrol spotted the vehicle on fire and saw the individual rushing out, reported Sergeant Santos of the Federal District Military Police. “There is a kind of bomb in the car, several explosives connected by bricks, but it did not completely catch fire,” he detailed.

According to the first elements of the investigation, it is a “suicide”, declared to the press Celina Leao, the vice-governor of Brasilia, evoking the trail of a “lone wolf”. According to a police document published by the channel GloboNewsthe assailant, also the owner of the car, would be named Francisco Wanderley Luiz. During local elections in 2020, he was a candidate for the post of municipal councilor under the colors of the Liberal Party of Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right president then in power.

A failed attack a few days before the G20

“There are crazy people everywhere and of all political tendencies,” reacted Wednesday evening on X Fabio Wajngarten, advisor to Jair Bolsonaro after the disclosure of the alleged identity of the attacker. “Making generalizations and amalgamations amounts to villainy and persecution,” he asserted.

This alleged attempted attack targeting a major institution of Brazilian democracy awakens the memory of the far-right riots against the seats of the executive, legislative and judiciary in the same square in the capital in January 2023. It also occurs a few days before a G20 summit which is to be held Monday and Tuesday in Rio de Janeiro and a state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday to Brasilia.

According to a presidential spokesperson, Lula was not at the presidential palace at the time of the explosions. The Supreme Court had previously announced that at the end of a session “two loud explosions were heard” and that the judges and staff on site were evacuated “as a precautionary measure”.