International
Brazil seeks arrest of Bolsonaro ally over Brasilia riots
January 11 | By AFP | Florian Plaucheur with Louis Genot in Rio de Janeiro |
Brazilian authorities seeking to punish the mob that stormed the halls of power in Brasilia issued arrest warrants Tuesday for two former senior officials, one of them a close ally of far right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro.
One of them is Anderson Torres, who used to be Bolsonaro’s justice minister and lately served as security chief in the capital.
He was fired after Sunday’s stunning violence, which was reminiscent of the January 6, 2021 insurrection in Washington, and brought global condemnation.
Anderson’s failure to act as thousands of Bolsonaro supporters overran congress, the presidential palace and the supreme court is “potentially criminal,” judge Alexandre Moraes of the Supreme Court said.
He also issued an arrest warrant for Fabio Augusto, who led the military police in Brasilia and was also removed from his job after Sunday’s mob violence. News reports said he is already in custody.
“Brazilian democracy will not be struck, much less destroyed, by terrorist criminals,” the judge wrote in his decision.
Torres was on vacation in the United States on Sunday as the mob ran amok. On Tuesday he denied any complicity in the events and said he will return to Brazil and defend himself.
Bolsonaro has also been in the United States since the end of December, skipping the inauguration of successor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
On Tuesday, Bolsonaro left the Florida hospital where he had been receiving treatment for intestinal problems stemming from a stabbing in 2018.
Most detainees released
The security forces in Brasilia have come under stinging attack over how they responded initially to the riot. Video posted on social media showed some of them filming the violence rather than intervening to halt it.
Justice Minister Flavio Dino said around 50 arrest warrants had been issued for people not caught in the act of pillaging and for others not present but accused of organizing the attack.
Police have arrested more than 1,500 people so far but said on Tuesday that “599 people were released, mostly old people, people with health problems, the homeless and mothers with children” on humanitarian grounds.
Most of the arrests took place on Monday as police cleared protest camps set up in the capital.
Lula had condemned “terrorist acts and criminal, coup-mongering vandalism” when he returned to work at the pillaged presidential palace on Monday.
But on Tuesday he said “Brazilian democracy remains firm,” in a post on Twitter.
“Let’s recover the country from hatred and disunity,” added the 77-year-old former trade unionist, who took office on January 1 for his third term as president after defeating Bolsonaro in the deeply divisive election.
Police said 527 people remain detained while others were being processed.
Those that were released were taken on buses to a bus station from where they would be able to return to their home regions.
From one of the buses, passengers shouted: “Victory is ours!” Some people put their arms outside the vehicles with clenched fists — a symbol of resistance — or making the “V” victory sign.
Other detainees were taken to police stations to then be transferred to the Papuda prison complex, an AFP reporter said.
‘Humiliation’
“Now we’re going to rest and prepare ourselves for another battle because if they think they will intimidate us, they are very wrong,” Agostinho Ribeiro, a freed Bolsonaro supporter, told AFP.
He said the detainees’ treatment at a police gymnasium where they were held had been humiliating and compared it to a Nazi concentration camp, while blaming the rioting on left-wing “infiltrators.”
Hundreds of soldiers and police mobilized to dismantle an improvised camp outside the army’s headquarters in Brasilia on Monday.
There, some 3,000 Bolsonaro supporters had set up tents — used as a base for the sea of protesters who ran riot for around four hours on Sunday.
Bolsonaro has alleged his electoral defeat was due to a conspiracy against him by Brazil’s courts and electoral authorities.
Lula, who previously led Brazil from 2003 to 2010, met with the leaders of both houses of Congress and the chief justice of the Supreme Court on Monday.
International
Marco Rubio launches U.S. campaign to “dismantle” the International Criminal Court
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Monday (July 13, 2026) the launch of a diplomatic campaign aimed at “dismantling” the International Criminal Court (ICC), a key institution in the global justice system, while pressuring Washington’s allies to withdraw from the organization, which he accused of interfering in U.S. affairs.
“The ICC represents an intolerable threat to American sovereignty: it claims the authority to prosecute and even imprison military personnel and officials acting in defense of the national interests of the United States,” Rubio said.
He also accused the court of waging “a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles, but with statutes, agreements and the power of what they call international law.”
The United States is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC. The Trump administration has previously imposed sanctions on senior court officials over investigations into alleged war crimes committed by U.S. personnel in Afghanistan and actions targeting Israeli officials, a key U.S. ally.
“Step by step, if necessary”
The new State Department initiative proposes banning ICC personnel from entering the United States and expanding sanctions against court members and affiliated organizations.
The plan also includes increasing pressure on Washington’s allies, particularly countries that “benefit from the U.S. security umbrella,” to publicly reject ICC actions and distance themselves from the institution.
The Trump administration will summon foreign ambassadors and senior officials to highlight what it describes as “ICC abuses” and encourage them to withdraw from the court.
Washington also plans to increase scrutiny of countries that refuse to reject what the administration calls the ICC’s “claimed authority” while continuing to rely on U.S. assistance.
Rubio said the ICC seeks to become “a global unaccountable arbiter.” In an opinion piece published Monday in The Wall Street Journal, the secretary of state said that with the support of its allies, the United States would dismantle the ICC “step by step, if necessary.”
International
ICE reverses course and moves forward with New Jersey migrant detention facility project
The administration of President Donald Trump has reversed course and resumed plans to convert a warehouse in New Jersey, purchased for $129.3 million, into a migrant detention facility with capacity for up to 1,500 people, according to a court filing in the state.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) submitted a document Friday to a federal court in New Jersey stating that it will continue moving forward with plans to establish the facility in the township of Roxbury.
According to the court filing, ICE had previously informed the court on June 29 that it had decided to abandon the plan to convert the property into a detention center.
However, on July 8, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials notified attorneys that, “after reconsideration,” the agency intended to continue evaluating the renovation of the warehouse for use as a migrant detention facility.
“DHS officials further informed counsel that, as of July 10, the agency’s deliberations remain ongoing,” the document stated.
The decision to revive the project comes two weeks after The New York Times reported that ICE had decided not to proceed with plans to establish new detention facilities as part of the Trump administration’s immigration detention and deportation strategy.
According to that report, the agency had planned to sell seven warehouses, including the Roxbury property, for more than $700 million or transfer them to other federal agencies.
The New Jersey facility proposal is part of broader efforts by the Trump administration to expand immigration enforcement infrastructure amid its push to increase detention capacity and accelerate deportations of undocumented immigrants.
International
Judge rules Trump’s IRS lawsuit was a “bad faith” attempt to manipulate the judicial process
A federal judge ruled Monday that a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was an attempt to “manipulate the judicial process” and determined that the case was brought in bad faith.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams ordered sanctions against the attorneys involved in the lawsuit, which led to an effort to create the now-defunct $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund aimed at addressing alleged political targeting by government institutions in favor of Trump allies.
The lawsuit was also used to justify a government order that sought to provide Trump and his companies with immunity from any past tax-related matters.
In a 56-page opinion, Williams sharply criticized both the Department of Justice (DOJ) — saying the government’s response to the case disregarded agency policies and may have violated the law — and the private attorneys who filed the lawsuit on Trump’s behalf.
“The very nature of the lawsuit and the conduct of the parties and counsel since its filing make clear that this was an attempt to use the court to provide legitimacy to an agreement designed to grant immunity to individuals and entities connected to the president and to allocate billions of taxpayer dollars to remedy grievances that the law does not recognize,” Williams wrote.
The judge also ordered that her opinion be referred to attorney disciplinary authorities in New York and Washington, which are already reviewing previous ethics complaints involving Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Deputy Attorney General Stanley Woodward.
Williams criticized the Justice Department for abandoning its responsibility to defend the interests of the United States, arguing that the government entered into an agreement that departed from its position in similar legal cases, ignored DOJ policies and pursued objectives beyond what is permitted by law.
“By abandoning its responsibility to vigorously defend the interests of the United States, the government entered into an agreement that deviated from its litigation position in similar cases, ignored Department of Justice policies and achieved objectives that exceeded those authorized by law, as well as others expressly prohibited,” Williams wrote.
The judge also referred one of Trump’s private attorneys to the Florida Bar for possible disciplinary action and barred another lawyer representing the president from appearing before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida for one year.
The ruling adds another legal setback for attorneys involved in cases connected to Trump’s administration and raises new questions about the conduct of government lawyers and private counsel involved in the IRS lawsuit.
Marco Rubio launches U.S. campaign to “dismantle” the International Criminal Court
ICE reverses course and moves forward with New Jersey migrant detention facility project
Judge rules Trump’s IRS lawsuit was a “bad faith” attempt to manipulate the judicial process
Tec de Monterrey honors one of its students for his contribution to nanotechnology in medicine
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