Brazilian federal police are investigating the whereabouts of Brazilian political refugees who escaped to Argentina after being charged with vandalism and insurrection for storming the seat of government at Brasilia last year. 

The police arrested nearly 50 suspects in a series of raids last week as part of the latest phase of Operation Lesa Pátria, but more than 150 suspects are at large. The federal police suspect that many of the fugitives fled to Argentina, where they may seek asylum under the libertarian president, Javier Milei.

Brazil has sought collaboration with Argentine police to locate the persons in question, as the two countries have a bilateral extraditions agreement dating back to 1968. The Brazilian supreme court has convicted nearly 116 people in the insurrection, with prison sentences ranging between three and 17 years. 

A supreme court justice, Alexandre de Moraes, said in a statement that Brazil’s ongoing response to the violence of January 8 “cannot fail to observe the necessary proportionality in the setting of reprimands.”

“The scale of the episode provoked demonstrations from political leaders in numerous countries,” he said. “All of whom are certainly aware of the impacts that criminal conduct of this nature can have on a global scale and the fact that, unfortunately, they are not limited to the Brazilian reality.”

On January 8, 2023, a crowd of Brazilian protesters claiming election fraud stormed the Praça do Três Poderes after the president, Jair Bolsonaro, lost an election to a former president, Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva. Demonstrators vandalized the buildings of congress, the supreme court, and the Palacio do Planalto, Brazil’s White House equivalent.

Operation Lesa Pátria is a federal effort to identify and convict those who participated and encouraged the demonstration on January 8; it was launched soon after the march on Brazil’s centers of political power. 

Police are preparing to send a list of fugitives to Brazil’s supreme court to begin the extradition process. The requests for extradition must contain evidence gathered by the police supporting investigations and accusations of crimes such as abolition of the rule of law, coup d’etat, incitement to crime, and deterioration or destruction of especially protected property, according to a report by Folha de São Paulo.

This week, a former Brazilian vice president, Hamilton Mourão, asked Mr. Milei to grant political asylum to January 8 fugitives, stating that their departure from Brazil proves that “they don’t believe in Brazilian judicial justice anymore.”

Mr. Mourão went on to say that the current Brazilian regime has “neglected legal due process” to those in question, and that their “international capture, much sought-after by those in government, clearly shows the authoritarian and persecutory bias of the left.”

Brazilians may currently enter Argentina without passports, but must be interviewed by the Argentine National Refugee commission, which approves asylum seekers on a case-by case basis. Until a decision is made, the person may remain in Argentina, according to a report by Jovem Pan News. 

The Argentinian Refugee Commission told reporters it does not comment or divulge information concerning asylum seekers.

For supporters of Brazil’s left-leaning Partido dos Trabalhadores, the January 8 demonstration is seen as a direct attack on the integrity of Brazil’s election institutions, and thereby its democracy. Many Brazilian conservatives, though, believe that Lula’s third presidency may lead to more corruption scandals and deteriorate the country’s economy.

Lula had previously been tried, convicted, and imprisoned due to corruption charges during Brazil’s Operation Lava Jato, a money-laundering investigation that was first launched in 2014. It resulted in more than 170 convictions, 200 plea deals, and the recovery of more than $860 million. 

Lula was imprisoned, but he was released after about a year and a half, and he swiftly put his center-left party back in power two years ago. 

A policy analyst, André Cesar, told Reuters that, given the ideological connection between Mr. Milei and those Brazilians seeking political exile, and the friction between Lula and Mr. Milei, Brazil may run into some difficulties in the extradition process.

Mr. Milei is certainly no admirer of Lula’s political ideology nor his policy, with the Argentine president last year on X having explicitly labeled the Brazilian head of state as a “thief.”