Brazilian Police Arrest Soldiers in Alleged Plot to Kill President Lula

Brazilian authorities arrested several members of an elite Brazilian army unit on Tuesday, accusing them of planning to assassinate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2022, shortly before he was to become the country’s president, as part of a plot to keep the far-right incumbent president, Jair Bolsonaro, in power.

Four of those arrested were members of the military, including a former top aide to Mr. Bolsonaro, according to a police official who was not authorized to discuss details of the case. A fifth person arrested in the case is a federal police agent, the official said.

Those detained used a “high level of technical military knowledge” to organize a plot to assassinate Mr. Lula, a leftist, and his pick for vice president, Geraldo Alckmin, on Dec. 15, 2022, the authorities said in a statement. The group had also planned to kill a Supreme Court justice, the authorities said, but they did not divulge the name of the justice.

“The planning drawn up by those under investigation detailed the human and military resources required to carry out the actions,” the police said in a statement.

A lawyer for Mr. Bolsonaro said his client had no involvement in or knowledge of the plot.

The former president “never agreed or participated in any type of plan of this nature,” the lawyer, Paulo Cunha Bueno, told The New York Times.

The police did not say if there was evidence that the plan to assassinate Mr. Lula and the others had been foiled or abandoned.