Top Officials Involved in Brazil Riots to be Arrested

Judicial authorities of Brazil have ordered the arrest of top officials involved in the in the ransacking of government buildings.

The officials also include Brasília's former public security chief Anderson Torres and others "responsible for acts and omissions" leading to the riots, the attorney general's office said.

Police said that around 1159 people arrested in connection with Sunday's storming of government building in Brasilia remained in custody. Some 684 others were released for "humanitarian reasons" after detention, including elderly people, those with health issues and parents of young children, police said.

The leader of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro's political party said that any member identified in videos taking part in the ransacking of government buildings on Sunday would be immediately expelled from the party.

Valdemar Costa Neto, president of the right-wing Liberal Party, said his party, the largest in Brazil's Congress, condemned the rampage in which Bolsonaro supporters vandalized the Supreme Court, Congress and presidential palace.

Notably, the rioting came a week after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, widely known as Lula, was sworn in. The dramatic scenes involved thousands of protesters, some clad in yellow Brazil football shirts and waving flags, which overran police and ransacked the heart of the Brazilian state.

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