Abin agents approve strike notice and appeal to the courts against director

Agents of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin) approved this Tuesday, the 24th, a strike notice and the filing of a Public Civil Action that calls for the removal of the three delegates who run the organization, including the general director, Luiz Fernando Corrêa, who is suspected of having acted in “collusion” with investigated employees to delay investigations in the case of the parallel Abin.

The announcement was made through Intelis (Union of State Intelligence Professionals of Abin), an entity that represents the category. According to the organization, the extraordinary general assembly, which decided on the topic, “registered record participation and demonstrated the high level of concern and anger of the servers”.

In the note, the entity states that “the allegations involving the Agency's top management, which resulted in indictments, were classified as 'serious', 'disgusting' and 'unacceptable'”.

Abin employees have been calling for Corrêa's removal since June 17. The director general is one of 35 people indicted by the Federal Police in the parallel Abin case and may have hindered the investigation into the agency's manipulation for political purposes by former president Jair Bolsonaro.

The CEO was kept in his position by President Luiz Inácio da Silva (PT) and continued after the indictment. In a statement, Intelis, which had been planning the assembly since June 20, had already criticized “the lack of control over confidential matters by the Federal Police and the Ministry of Justice.”

“With the strike notice approved, the organization will present a set of formal demands. If there is no satisfactory response within the stipulated deadline, a new assembly will be called,” says the organization that represents the employees. Failure to meet the requests may result in a strike.

According to the Federal Police, the parallel Abin would be a scheme led by city councilman Carlos Bolsonaro (PL-RJ) and his father, former president Jair Bolsonaro. The politicians would have created a structure to illegally spy on ministers of the Supreme Federal Court (STF), opposition politicians, journalists, deputies and other Brazilians.

The objective, according to the PF, would be to serve the Bolsonaros' political interests, attack opponents and discredit democratic institutions.

It is estimated that almost 1,800 cell phones were illegally monitored between February 2019 and April 2021 through this structure. The Federal Police also claims that Bolsonaro would be the “decision-making center”, who would determine the monitoring targets and used Abin to conduct attacks on electronic voting machines.