Ex-Brazilian president sentenced to 27 years over coup attempt
The Brazilian Supreme Court has convicted former President Jair Bolsonaro of attempting to overturn the country’s 2022 election, leaving the politician facing a decades-long sentence for leading what prosecutors called a criminal conspiracy.
Four out of five justices on a Supreme Court panel found Bolsonaro guilty on all five counts he faced, sentencing him to 27 years and three months in prison.
The charges included planning a coup d’état, taking part in an armed criminal organization, attempting to abolish Brazil’s democratic order by force, damaging protected public property, and committing violent acts against state institutions.
Bolsonaro sought to “annihilate the essential pillars of the democratic rule-of-law state” and restore “dictatorship in Brazil,” Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes said as he announced the verdict on Thursday.
According to prosecutors, the coup plot began in 2021 with efforts to erode public trust in Brazil’s electoral system. After Bolsonaro’s 2022 defeat, they alleged his supporters were urged to mobilize in the capital, Brasilia, where they stormed and vandalized the nation’s three branches of government on January 8, 2023.
Bolsonaro and other defendants have denied wrongdoing, and defense lawyers could still file appeals.
The case has heightened tensions with the United States, after President Donald Trump called it a “witch hunt” and imposed steep 50% tariffs on Brazil. The Trump administration has also sanctioned Justice Alexandre de Moraes for what it described as “serious human rights violations,” and announced visa restrictions against him and other court officials.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has condemned Trump’s pressure tactics, accusing Washington of having “helped stage a coup” and vowing that Brazil “will not forget it.”
