According to local media, Andreia Munarao, wife of businessman Roberto Mantovani Filho, approached the judge at the airport last Friday as he was returning from a lecture at the University of Siena’s International Law Forum.
According to O Globo newspaper, Mantovani Filho was the mayoral candidate of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party and is now linked to the centre-right Social Democratic Party. His wife, a self-confessed Bolsonaro supporter, harassed the minister over his handling of conflicting issues involving the far-right politician.
According to the Metropoles portal, Munarao confronted the judge with shouts of “bandit, communist and sell-out”.
At that moment, an altercation began between Mantovani Filho, her husband, and the couple’s son-in-law, Alex Zanatta Bignotto.
In addition to insulting De Moraes and his family, one of the individuals even physically assaulted the minister’s son. On other occasions, members of the STF have been attacked by extremist supporters of Bolsonaro.
The Attorney General’s Office reported in a statement that, although he was abroad, Attorney General Augusto Aras sent messages to De Moraes when he learned the facts.
“Aras finds this aggression repulsive, which he says is exacerbated by the fact that it hits the minister’s family,” the indictment reads.
The panel also indicated that the Federal Ministry of Public Affairs would take the appropriate action in relation to the case, and the provocative couple were summoned to testify before the PF tomorrow.
After the violence, the political authorities expressed their solidarity with the judge and among those named were the Presidents of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira, and the President of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco.
Other parliamentarians and the Minister of Justice and Public Security, Flávio Dino, also condemned the attack.
“How long will these extremists continue to attack officials in public places, even if they are accompanied by their families?” Dino wrote on his Twitter profile.
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