BOLSONARO DEFENSE CHIEF EYES SNIPERS VS CRIMINALS
The future defense minister of Brazil’s farright President-elect Jair Bolsonaro said on Wednesday that snipers should be deployed to kill criminal suspects.
“It’s a necessary reaction to the ostentatious display of weapons of war, often in the hands of young people,” retired general Augusto Heleno told Radio Nacional.
“It’s not about killing indiscriminately. You need well-established criteria,” he added. “Police in Rio are very brave ... but they need another kind of support.”
New appointments
Bolsonaro set about staffing his new administration on Wednesday, naming an astronaut as science minister while a top anticorruption judge mulled a job offer.
Bolsonaro won the presidential race on Sunday, overcoming his leftist opponent with a vow to kneecap violent drug gangs and end years of political graft.
Bolsonaro said on Twitter that Marcos Pontes, a Brazilian astronaut who was the country’s first person in space, would be his science and technology minister.
Still choosing a Cabinet
A full Cabinet will be announced next month, Bolsonaro’s future chief of staff, Onyx Lorenzoni, said in a private meeting, according to two people who heard the remarks.
On Thursday, Bolsonaro is due to meet with crusading anticorruption judge, Sergio Moro, who led the “Car Wash” probe snaring big political names and opening the door for Bolsonaro’s tough-on-corruption campaign.
Bolsonaro has said he wanted Moro to serve as justice minister and eventually join the Supreme Court, whose next vacancy is expected in 2020.