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Alleged assassination of João Goulart

After being overthrown, João Goulart was the first Brazilian president to die in exile. He died of an alleged heart attack in his sleep in Mercedes, Argentina, on 6 December 1976. Because an autopsy was never performed, the true cause of his death remains unknown.

On 26 April 2000, former governor of Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul Leonel Brizola, Goulart's brother-in-law, alleged that former presidents Goulart and Juscelino Kubitschek (who died in a car accident) were assassinated as part of Operation Condor. He asked for investigations to be opened into their deaths.

On 27 January 2008, the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo printed a story with a statement from Mario Neira Barreiro, a former intelligence service member under Uruguay's dictatorship. Barreiro said that Goulart was poisoned, confirming Brizola's allegations. Barreiro also said that the order to assassinate Goulart came from Sérgio Paranhos Fleury, head of the Departamento de Ordem Política e Social (Department of Political and Social Order) and the licence to kill came from president Ernesto Geisel. In July 2008, a special commission of the Legislative Assembly of Rio Grande do Sul, Goulart's home state, concluded that "the evidence that Jango was willfully assassinated, with knowledge of the Geisel government, is strong."

In March 2009, the magazine CartaCapital published previously unreleased documents of the National Information Service created by an undercover agent who was present at Goulart's properties in Uruguay. This revelation reinforces the theory that the former president was poisoned. The Goulart family has not yet identified who could be the "B Agent", as he is referred to in the documents. The agent acted as a close friend to Goulart, and described in detail an argument during the former president's 56th birthday party with his son because of a fight between two employees. As a result of the story, the Human Rights Commission of the Chamber of Deputies decided to investigate Goulart's death.

Later, CartaCapital published an interview with Goulart's widow, Maria Teresa Fontela Goulart, revealing documents from the Uruguayan government detailing her complaints that her family had been monitored. The Uruguayan government was monitoring Goulart's travel, his business, and his political activities. These files were from 1965, a year after the coup in Brazil, and suggest that he could have been deliberately attacked. The Movement for Justice and Human Rights and the President João Goulart Institute have requested a document referring to the Uruguayan Interior Ministry saying that "serious and responsible Brazilian sources" talked about an "alleged plot against the former Brazilian president."

Tests carried out by forensic experts in Brazil on Goulart's exhumed remains revealed no evidence of poison. The autopsy concluded that his death was likely due to natural causes. Despite the findings from the forensic analysis, Brazil's National Truth Commission is persisting with its investigation into the circumstances surrounding Goulart's demise. Allegations suggested that Goulart's medication for a heart condition had been swapped with poison by Uruguayan secret agents acting on behalf of the Brazilian dictatorship. Goulart's body was exhumed for examination to address suspicions of foul play, within the larger framework of Operation Condor which targeted opposition activists.