Brazil charges former president Jair Bolsonaro over alleged coup plot

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Brazil’s former leader Jair Bolsonaro has been formally charged with leading an alleged coup plot to remain in power after losing the 2022 election to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The hard-right politician was accused by the country’s attorney-general of leading a “criminal organisation” to subvert democracy in Latin America’s most populous nation.

Prosecutors said 33 other people were involved in the plot, including Bolsonaro’s vice-presidential candidate General Walter Braga Netto and nearly two dozen retired or serving senior military personnel. The plot included plans to assassinate Lula to prevent him from taking office, prosecutors alleged.

Brazil’s supreme court must now consider the charges and decide whether to proceed to a trial. If convicted, Bolsonaro, an ally of US President Donald Trump, could face a lengthy jail sentence.

Bolsonaro, a former army captain and darling of Brazil’s rightwing movement, has previously painted himself as the victim of politically motivated persecution. He has already been declared ineligible to run for public office until 2030 because of attacks on the country’s electoral system.

He also faces two other court cases over the alleged falsification of a Covid-19 vaccine certificate and the illegal sale of jewels given to him as head of state.

In a filing to the supreme court, attorney-general Paulo Gonet said the charges “describe deeds carried out by a President of the Republic who forms a structured criminal organisation with other civil and military figures to prevent the result of the popular will expressed in the 2022 elections from being carried out”.

The charges were based on a detailed federal police report from last November.

Bolsonaro’s legal team said the former president “has never supported any movement that aimed to deconstruct the democratic rule of law or its institutions.

“Despite almost two years of investigations . . . no element that even remotely connected the President to the narrative constructed in the complaint was found.”

Conspirators in the alleged “Green and Yellow Dagger” plot, named for the Brazilian flag, allegedly planned to murder president-elect Lula and his running mate Geraldo Alckmin in December 2022, weeks before the handover of power. Supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes was also targeted for assassination, prosecutors said.

Among the accused were the then-commander of the Brazilian navy, the former justice minister under Bolsonaro and a previous head of the country’s intelligence service.

The scheme was ultimately not carried out, the report said, because of a lack of support among top army commanders. But Bolsonaro was aware of, and agreed with, the plan to kill Lula, according to Gonet.

Police said the criminal organisation began in June 2021. Authorities also referenced Bolsonaro’s repeated attacks on Brazil’s electronic voting system in the run-up to his defeat. Bolsonaro had claimed the digital ballot boxes were vulnerable to fraud, without providing evidence.

Investigators also linked the alleged coup attempt to an insurrection in Brasília on January 8 2023, when thousands of radical Bolsonaro supporters stormed government buildings days after Lula’s inauguration.

Many of the rioters claimed that the presidential election, which Bolsonaro narrowly lost, had been rigged and called for a military putsch. Hundreds have been convicted, with many serving custodial sentences.

In recent days, the former president has attempted to rally conservative forces in Congress to pass an amnesty law for crimes connected to the unrest. Opponents view it as a tactic to help Bolsonaro’s own cause.