Former Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison after being found guilty of plotting a military coup.
A panel of five Supreme Court justices yesterday ruled in a 4-1 vote he was guilty 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.
Bolsonaro’s lawyers have called the sentence “absurdly excessive” and said that they would file “the appropriate appeals”.
In addition, the Supreme Court panel also barred him from running for public office until 2060 – eight years after the end of his sentence.
Reacting to the guilty verdict, US president, Donald Trump said he found it “very surprising” and compared it to his own experience: “That’s very much like they tried to do with me. But they didn’t get away with it at all.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Brazil’s Supreme Court had “unjustly ruled to imprison former President Jair Bolsonaro” and threatened to “respond accordingly to this witch hunt”.
Brazil’s foreign ministry reacted swiftly, posting on X that “threats like the one made today by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a statement that attacks a Brazilian authority and ignores the facts and the compelling evidence on record, will not intimidate our democracy”.
70 years old Bolsonaro now faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison.
His lawyers are also expected to argue that he should be kept under house arrest instead of being sent to jail – as well as plead for a lower sentence.
2022 Coup Attempt
Jair Bolsonaro was found guilty of five charges, all relating to his attempt to cling to power after he was defeated in the 2022 election.
But prosecutors said he had started to plot to stay in power long before, proposing a coup to military commanders and sowing unfounded doubts about the electoral system.
They also said that Bolsonaro knew of a plan to assassinate Lula and his vice-presidential running mate, as well as a Supreme Court Justice.
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.
