Brazil judge says suicide bomber wanted to blow up Supreme Court

By Bernardo Caram and Anthony Boadle

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Police have identified the man who killed himself in a blast outside Brazil's Supreme Court on Wednesday night as a former city council candidate from ex-President Jair Bolsonaro's right-wing party with a history of heated political rhetoric online.

The explosions outside the court and in a nearby parking lot, which federal police called "attacks," raised security concerns days ahead of the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro and Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the capital Brasilia.

A police report seen by Reuters, confirmed as authentic by people familiar with the matter, said Francisco Wanderley Luiz, 59, threw an object at the court building that caused no damage and lay down to explode a homemade bomb in an apparent suicide.

Brazil's electoral records show he lost a 2020 race for city council in Rio do Sul, in the southern state of Santa Catarina, as a member of Bolsonaro's right-wing Liberal Party. 

Police inspected his body on Thursday morning, clothed in a green jacket and pants with playing card symbols, as it lay in the Plaza of the Three Powers, an iconic square connecting Brazil's three branches of government.

It was the scene of chaos on Jan. 8 last year when Bolsonaro supporters ransacked government buildings to protest his electoral defeat to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

In the weeks before those riots in the capital, police foiled a bomb plot near the Brasilia airport inspired by Bolsonaro's baseless allegations of a stolen election.

Before and after losing the 2022 race to Lula, Bolsonaro sowed doubts about the legitimacy of an electoral system run by the courts and attacked Supreme Court decisions as illegitimate.

Brazil's top electoral court barred Bolsonaro from public office through 2030 due to that rhetoric, and federal police are investigating his role in an alleged coup plot after the vote. 

He has denied any wrongdoing and his party insists he will be its presidential candidate in 2026.

Wednesday's blasts in the heart of the capital could bring fresh attention to that police probe into Bolsonaro, which was expected to wrap up this month.

The first explosion went off in a parking lot some 300 meters from the Supreme Court building and blew open the trunk of a car owned by Luiz. Other blasts seconds apart went off in front of the court in the square where police found his body.

The Supreme Court justices had just ended a plenary session when the blasts were heard and they evacuated safely, the court said in a statement.   

Lula had left the executive palace, across the square from the court, less than an hour before the explosions.

Federal District Vice Governor Celina Leao said in a late Wednesday news conference that preliminary information suggested the man had killed himself with explosives after trying to enter the Supreme Court.

Leao said she hoped it was a crime by a "lone wolf," but she could not be sure. 

Federal police scheduled a news conference regarding the case at 11 a.m. local time (1400 GMT) on Thursday.