A panel of judges on the Supreme Court of Brazil accepted the accusations against former President Jair Bolsonaro for an alleged attempt to remain in office after his electoral defeat in 2022, and they ordered the former trial.
The five judges ruled on Wednesday in favor of the acceptance of the accusations led by the Attorney General Paulo Gonet. Last month, Gonet accused Bolsonaro and 33 other people of having tried a coup that included a plan to poison his successor and current president Luiz inácio Lula da Silva and kill a judge of the Supreme Court.
The former president has repeatedly denied the reprehensible acts.
“The kicks kill,” said judge Flávio Dino during his vote. “It doesn’t matter whether it happens today, the following month or a few years later.”
If he is found guilty in a trial later expected this year, Bolsonaro could incur a long prison sentence extending over two decades.
In his opening remarks on Wednesday, judge Alexandre de Moraes, who oversees the case, projected spectacular images of the supporters of Bolsonaro to storm government buildings in violent scenes which took place only a week after the inauguration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in January 2023.
Supporters of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro who refuse to accept his loss during the recent presidential election stormed government buildings in the country’s capital on Sunday, only a week after the inauguration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Bolsonaro, a former far -right army captain who was president of Brazil from 2019 to 2022, is accused of five crimes, including an alleged attempt to violently abolish democratic law and a coup.
Moraes said Bolsonaro had led “a systematic effort to question the electronic voting machines” used in Brazil, part of his efforts to undermine the election he lost.
The Supreme Court began to examine charges against Bolsonaro and seven of its closest allies on Tuesday in a session in which Bolsonaro voluntarily attended, sit down silently in the first row in an echo of the trial of US President Donald Trump last year.
Before the hearing of the historic court, Bolsonaro called a rally by the sea in Rio de Janeiro, in the hope of grasping the congress of popularity and pressure of Lula to adopt a bill of amnesty promoting him and his imprisoned supporters.
The demonstration, which suggested certain allies could attract more than a million donors, was largely considered a flop after two independent survey companies found that only 20,000 and 30,000 people arose.
Bolsonaro insisted that he would present himself again to the presidency next year, despite a decision of the Superior Electoral Court of Brazil which prevented him from presenting himself to his public service until 2030 for his efforts to discredit the country’s voting system.
