The screenwriter of the film “Brazil” imagined another: the flight to El Salvador, the dream of the continent’s far-right leaders, of the former director of the federal highway police, Silvinei Vasques, sentenced to 23 years and six months in prison for attempted coup d’état and four other crimes.
It was not an escape like any other. Like Bolsonaro, for example, in the United States on December 30, 2022. Until the day before, he fought in vain to recover the jewelry given to his wife by the Saudi government and seized by the Federal Revenue Service at Guarulhos airport.
Bolsonaro arrived in Brazil hidden in a minister’s suitcase and received them. Representative Carla Zambelli (PL-SP), sentenced by the Federal Court to 10 years in prison, but not for coup d’état, fled to Italy, via the United States, in a, let’s say, more discreet manner.
She was arrested in Rome, beaten by detainees and is about to be extradited. MP Alexandre Ramagem (PL-RJ), former head of the Brazilian intelligence agency, even succeeded, sentenced to 16 years in prison as a coup plotter. He fled to the United States. He lives in Miami with his family.
What will be the fate of the Pitbull after its owner was arrested at an airport in Asunción, Paraguay, while trying to board a flight to El Salvador? Silvinei has already been returned to Brazil and his preventive arrest has been ordered. We still have no news of the dog, his inseparable companion.
As Silvinei’s sentence was not final, he lived with the dog in an apartment in the municipality of São José, Santa Catarina, attached to an electronic bracelet on his ankle (him, not the dog). Silvinei broke his ankle bracelet and around 7:30 p.m. he began his escape on Christmas Eve.
He took care to fill the car in which he fled with food and hygienic mats for the dog. The federal police only became aware of the escape on the 25th, at 3 a.m. Dressed in sweatpants, a T-shirt and a cap, Silvinei carried a letter saying he could neither hear nor speak and was going to seek treatment in El Salvador.
According to the letter, in Spanish, he had undergone treatment in Foz do Iguaçu which had the side effects of blindness and deafness. During his arrest, Silvinei used a false Paraguayan passport bearing the name Julio Eduardo. How do you question a blind, deaf and mute person who, in his letter, declares that he has brain cancer?
It wasn’t necessary. The federal police sent photos of Silvinei to the Paraguayan police in time.
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