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Still appetite for a military coup despite guilty verdict
The Guardian Weekly
|October 17, 2025
Hours after supporters of the former president Jair Bolsonaro ransacked Brasília on 8 January 2023, three electricity pylons were brought down in different locations, between 1,600 and 2,900km away from Brazil's capital.
In the following days, 21 more towers were toppled, all using the same method. The perpetrators knew exactly which lines to sever to cause the most harm to the power supply.
The elaborate modus operandi led the federal police to suspect that the attacks had been carried out by members of the Brazilian army's elite unit, known as the "black cap boys". Yet two years and eight months on, the perpetrators have still not been identified.
Bolsonaro was last month found guilty of attempting to overthrow democracy, along with seven of his closest allies, including five senior military officers.
The verdict prompted an outburst of relief and celebration among defenders of democracy, but there is a growing sense among researchers - and even some former officers - that the armed forces have not been held accountable as institutions.
This story is from the October 17, 2025 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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