Brazil’s Supreme Court sentenced former president Jair Bolsonaro to 27 years and three months in prison for coup. The Supreme Court reached a majority of four votes out of a total of five to issue a verdict against the country’s former president Jair Bolsonaro.
Bolsonaro was accused of orchestrating a coup d’état to remain in power nearly three years ago, preventing the inauguration of the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who won the October 2022 elections.
The former president was already under house arrest and his lawyers are likely to request it instead of prison due to his health problems.
Bolsonaro convicted by Brazil’s Supreme Court for Coup
After the favorable vote for Jair Bolsonaro cast by Justice Luiz Fux in the Supreme Court, a possibility emerged for the former president of Brazil to avoid a conviction. However, in today’s vote, the necessary majority of four out of five votes was finally achieved to issue a verdict.
Justice Carmen Lucia, appointed at the request of the Lula government, was the one who voted this Thursday for a conviction on the charge of criminal organization, while other charges remain to be voted on. “Bolsonaro committed the crimes charged,” the justice said when casting her vote.
Bolsonaro, 70 years old and tried along with several former collaborators and military chiefs, has now been convicted to 27 years and three months in prison
The indictment describes a plan to assassinate President Lula da Silva and one of the justices who is currently part of the Supreme Court.
The charges against former president Jair Bolsonaro
The former president and the other seven defendants face a total of five charges: attempted coup d’état; attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law; armed criminal organization; aggravated damages by violence and serious threat; and deterioration of protected property.
Bolsonaro has defended his innocence from the very beginning, arguing that without the support of the armed forces it was impossible to carry out a coup that would alter constitutional order. Some documents would prove, according to the justices, that the coup plotters attempted to convince military chiefs to join their conspiracy, but they refused to take part in the attempt.
After Justice Lucia’s vote, it is clear that the final verdict will be against the far-right former president, a key United States ally in the region. Nevertheless, the final ruling is subject to appeal, and the road to enforcing a possible conviction against the defendants is still long.
Meanwhile, political tensions between Brazil and the U.S. will continue, since the Trump administration maintains the 50% tariff on Brazilian exports, claiming that the trial against Bolsonaro is a “witch hunt” as well as a political trial, they say, without guarantees.