Rodrigo Janot: Brazil ex-prosecutor admits plan to kill judge

Rodrigo Janot said the "hand of God" had intervened to stop him

A judge in Brazil has issued a restraining order against a former attorney general after he admitted carrying a gun inside the Supreme Court to kill one of the justices.

Rodrigo Janot served as chief public prosecutor for four years until 2017.

He led the prosecutions for corruption of ex-presidents Michel Temer, Dilma Rousseff and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

He has now been barred from being within 200m of members of the bench.

Mr Janot is also banned from entering any tribunal building in Brazil.

He made the admission in interviews ahead of the publication of his memoirs.

Police have searched his home to remove his weapons, and take his gun licence away.

Mr Janot - in an interview published by the O Estado de São Paulo newspaper - said that in May 2017 he entered the federal Supreme Court building in Brasilia to kill a judge who had allegedly smeared his daughter with an untrue allegation.

"It wasn't going to be a threat, it was going to be an assassination. I was going to kill him and afterwards kill myself," said Mr Janot.

He said he had seen sense and abandoned this course of action when he found himself alone in a room in the court building.

"I was alone, and it was the hand of God [that stopped me]," he recounted.