Brazil police investigate threatening videos targeting president-elect

Brazil’s Federal Police is investigating two Internet videos containing threats against the South American nation’s president-elect, officials said Wednesday.

In one of the videos that have circulated on social media, a man with his face concealed can be seen holding up a submachine gun and pointing it at a dark street while shouting threats against rightist Jair Bolsonaro , who will take office on Jan. 1.

In the other, a man who shows his face to the camera holds up two handguns and issues a death threat to Bolsonaro.

Carlos Bolsonaro, a city councilor in Rio de Janeiro and one of the president-elect’s sons, shared the videos online early this month and warned of the risk of not taking verbal threats seriously.

Bolsonaro was stabbed in the abdomen during a campaign rally on Sept. 6 in the southeastern city of Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais state.

He sustained life-threatening injuries and was hospitalized for three weeks, although he recovered and won a runoff election on Oct. 28.

Separately Wednesday, Bolsonaro named his Social Liberal Party’s president, Gustavo Bebianno, as his future secretary-general of the presidency, a Cabinet-level position, and chose Andre Luiz de Almeida Mondonca to be his attorney general starting Jan. 1.

Also Wednesday, Brazil’s future first lady, Michelle Bolsonaro, said in Brasilia that she wants to participate in as many social programs as possible once her husband takes office.

She said she would like to focus on projects that benefit people with some type of disability.