Brazil's top court orders Bolsonaro to stand trial for coup plot

Brazil's Supreme Court ordered far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro to stand trial on charges of plotting a coup after failing to win re-election in 2022.

On Wednesday, a five-judge panel of the top court voted unanimously to put Bolsonaro on trial.

The trial will be the first of an ex-leader accused of attempting to take power by force since the start of Brazil's transition from dictatorship to democracy in 1985.

If convicted, the 70-year-old former army captain, who had nurtured hopes of making a comeback in elections scheduled for next year, risks a jail term of over 40 years.

Bolsonaro, who served a single term from 2019-2022, is accused of leading a "criminal organisation" that conspired to keep him in power regardless of the outcome of the 2022 election.

He lost to veteran left-winger Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva by a razor-thin margin.

Investigators say that after his defeat, the coup plotters planned to issue a decree calling for new elections.

The investigators say the plotters also planned to have Lula, his vice-president Geraldo Alckmin, and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes- a Bolsonaro arch-foe and one of the judges in the current case- assassinated.

Moraes, who has called Bolsonaro a "dictator," was the first judge to give his findings in the hearing, which was broadcast live on Brazilian TV.

Bolsonaro will be the second Brazilian ex-president in under a decade to face a criminal trial.

In July 2017, ex-president Lula was found guilty of corruption.

He spent a year and a half in prison but later had his conviction annulled by the Supreme Court and went on to win back the top office.

'Persecution'

Bolsonaro is charged with attempting a "coup d'etat," the "attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law" and "armed criminal organisation."

The prosecution says the alleged plot did not come to fruition due to a lack of support from the army high command.

Seven other people will be tried alongside Bolsonaro, including several of his former ministers and a former navy commander.

The former president insists he is the victim of a political ploy aimed at barring his return to the presidency.

"This is the largest political-judicial persecution in the history of Brazil," he said in a statement Tuesday.

"The referee has blown the whistle before the match even began," he added later on the social media platform X.

He had sought in vain to have three judges, including Moraes, removed from the case.

Bolsonaro's political future had already appeared in doubt before Wednesday's ruling.

He has been disqualified from holding public office until 2030 for having cast doubt on Brazil's electronic voting system.

He had hoped to have the ban overturned or reduced in time to stand in next year's election.

A conviction for plotting to subvert Brazil's democracy would likely end those ambitions and force the right to find a new candidate.

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Source: TRT