Ione WellsSouth America correspondent in Brasília and
Vanessa BuschschlüterBBC News
SERGIO LIMA/AFP via Getty Images
The former president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, has been found guilty of plotting a military coup.
Four out of the five Supreme Court justices tasked with judging the former leader found him guilty. One judge voted to acquit him.
The 70-year-old has been convicted of leading a conspiracy aimed at keeping him in power after he lost the 2022 election to his left-wing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
While the plot failed to enlist enough support from the military to go ahead, it did culminate in the storming of government buildings by Bolsonaro’s supporters on 8 January 2023, the justices found.
The charges carry heavy sentences and could add up to a prison term of more than 40 years. The justices have begun with the sentencing.
Casting the decisive vote, Justice Cármen Lúcia said on Thursday that Bolsonaro had triggered the “insurgency” of 8 January 2023, when thousands of his supporters vandalised the Supreme Court, the presidential palace, and Congress.
She found him guilty on all the five charges: attempting to stage a coup, leading an armed criminal organisation, attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, and two more charges related to the damage of property during the storming of buildings in Brasília on 8 January 2023.
Bolsonaro has always maintained his innocence and has called the trial a “witch hunt”, arguing it was politically motivated.
His lawyers are expected to lodge appeals.
Bolsonaro has not been in court for any of the sessions of the final phase of the trial.
His lawyers cited health reasons for his decision to follow proceedings from his home in Brasília. He was stabbed in the stomach on the campaign trail in 2018 and has been having recurrent health problems since.
He has been under house arrest since the beginning of August after a police report alleged that he and his son, Eduardo, had tried to interfere in the trial.
His lawyer was present in court but left after Justice Lúcia had declared his client guilty of the attempted coup and armed criminal conspiracy, even before she had finished speaking.
The charges against Bolsonaro did not just relate to events of 8 January 2023.
Prosecutors said he had started to plot to stay in power long before, proposing launching a coup to military commanders and sowing unfounded doubts about the electoral system.
They also said that he knew of a plan to assassinate Lula, his vice-presidential running mate, and a Supreme Court Justice.
Justice Lúcia compared the attempted coup to a “virus”, which, if left to fester, can kill the society in which it has taken hold in.
She added: “I hope that this trial will prove a cure so that it doesn’t come back. Relapses aren’t good.”
Supporters of Bolsonaro have been scathing in their criticism of the proceedings, arguing that they are designed to prevent him from running for the presidency in the 2026 election.
While Bolsonaro is already barred from running for public office until 2030 for falsely claiming that Brazil’s voting system was vulnerable to fraud, he had declared his intention to fight that ban so he could stand for a second term in 2026.
One of his vocal supporters has been US President Donald Trump, who imposed 50% tariffs on Brazilian imports citing the court’s treatment of Bolsonaro as a trigger for the hike.
He also sanctioned Alexandre de Moraes, the Supreme Court justice overseeing the Bolsonaro trial.
Reacting to Bolsonaro’s conviction, Trump said he found it “very surprising”.
“It’s very much what they tried to do with me, but they didn’t get away with it at all. He was a good man, I don’t see that happening,” Trump told reporters, drawing parallels between Bolsonaro and himself.
Jair Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo, who lobbied for the imposition of sanctions on Brazilian imports, told Reuters news agency that he expected the US would take further measures in the wake of the verdict.
“We are going to have a firm response with actions from the US government against this dictatorship that is being installed in Brazil,” he said.
