Moraes gives 5 days for Heleno’s defense to present documents proving Alzheimer

General Augusto Heleno, 78, claimed during a body exam that he has been diagnosed with Alzheimer since 2018. He was detained in Brasília on Tuesday in connection with a coup plot case involving the Army and the Federal Police. Augusto Heleno, during interrogation in the Supreme Federal Court, stated that he has been suffering from ‘Alzheimer’s Dementia evolving since 2018, with significant recent memory loss, constipation, and hypertension, under medical treatment.’ The body exam record is a medical-legal procedure done to verify and record the physical conditions of the person at the time of arrest, both to protect the detainee and the State against unverifiable future claims.
The defense filed a request for house arrest due to his health condition. The Attorney General’s Office recommended house arrest for humanitarian reasons. In his ruling, Justice Moraes questioned whether Heleno had informed the health service of the Presidency, the Ministry, or any department when he was a minister from 2019 to 2022 about the diagnosis. He requested the initial examination identifying or recording symptoms of mixed dementia in 2018, including medical records, as well as documents proving consultations and the doctors who monitored the evolution of Alzheimer during that period.
Augusto Heleno served as a minister in Jair Bolsonaro’s government from January 2019 until the end of his term in December 2022. The arrest occurred after the Supreme Federal Court declared the final decision and ordered the start of the sentence in the coup plot case. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison for being part of a criminal organization aiming to keep the former president in power despite losing in the elections.
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