Five Brazilians who were arrested in Argentina after being sentenced for participating in the 2023 storming of Brasilia’s government buildings will have their extradition trial on June 18. CNN broke the news last week, and the Herald has confirmed it with people close to the matter.

At least 56 Bolsonaristas who participated in the 2023 stormings and escaped to Argentina after being sentenced remain at large.

Following Jair Bolsonaro’s defeat in the 2022 presidential elections, a mob of his supporters attacked three federal government buildings in Brasilia to protest  newly elected President Lula Da Silva. Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice and electoral authority Alexandre de Moraes considers the attack part of a plot that would ultimately end with a coup. 

The Brazilian judiciary has already convicted hundreds of people involved in the riots for crimes ranging from vandalism to insurrection. Bolsonaro himself is facing trial as he was deemed part of the plot. He has also been barred from public office until 2030. 

Some of those accused and convicted fled to Argentina after Bolsonaro ally and current President Javier Milei  took office in December 2023. Claudio Caivano, a lawyer representing some of them, told the Herald that around 500 were living in Argentina last year. According to official data, 181 Brazilians living in Argentina requested political asylum in 2024 through the National Refugee Commission. No request has yet been granted.

Last October, the Brazilian government formally requested that the Argentine Foreign Ministry extradite 61 of those living in Argentina. Argentine Federal Judge Daniel Rafecas requested their arrest the following month. At press time, only five of them have been detained.

The five fugitives set to stand trial are  Joelton Gusmão de Oliveira (sentenced in Brazil to 17 years), Rodrigo de Freitas Moro Ramalho (14 years), Joel Borges Correa (13 years), Wellington Luiz Firmino (17 years), and Ana Paula de Souza (14 years).

A recent report by The Intercept revealed a web of business, media, and political support that made possible the escape and the continued residence of the Brazilians who fled to Argentina.

If the court decides to extradite them, their only remaining appeal instance would be Argentina’s Supreme Court.

Hernán Mirasole, an Argentine lawyer of one of the Brazilians living here (who is not among those arrested), called the extradition trial “an excess.” “It is a flagrant human rights violation and a haste on the part of the federal justice system, once again meddling in political issues that do not concern it under any point of view,” he told the Herald, arguing that if they sought political asylum, their arrest was unruly.

A judicial source close to the matter, meanwhile, told the Herald that the fact that Brazilians have requested political asylum does not prevent them from being arrested.