A Brazilian judge on Wednesday returned the first not-guilty vote in the coup-plotting trial of former president Jair Bolsonaro, shifting all eyes on the last two of his colleagues left to vote following two guilty findings.
Justice Luiz Fux labeled the trial as “political” in a verdict he read over more than nine hours.
Two other judges have so far voted to convict former army captain Bolsonaro, whose US ally President Donald Trump has branded the high-profile Brazilian trial a “witch hunt.”
The 70-year-old far-right ex-leader risks a prison sentence of more than 40 years if found guilty of seeking to claw back power after his defeat in 2022 elections to leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
A simple majority of three of the five presiding judges is needed for a conviction. The verdict hearing is set to continue until Friday.
Bolsonaro, who claims he is the victim of persecution, is in the dock on five charges with seven co-defendants, including former ministers and generals.
He stands accused of leading a “criminal organization” that conspired to overthrow Lula in a plot that failed only because of a lack of support from the military top brass.
Bolsonaro, who served a single term from 2019 to 2022, also allegedly knew of a plan to assassinate Lula, his vice president Geraldo Alckmin and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre Moraes, who is now presiding over the coup trial.
The ex-president is furthermore accused of inciting the violent 2023 storming of the Supreme Court, presidential palace and Congress in Brasilia by hundreds of supporters who urged the military to oust Lula.
Bolsonaro’s senator son, Flavio, called Wednesday for the trial to be annulled, saying Fux had exposed the process as “political persecution.”
For many in Brazil and beyond, the trial is a test of the strength of the country’s democracy 40 years after the end of a military dictatorship.
For others, it is a political show trial.
Trump has taken the latter view.
His US administration has slapped a 50-percent tariff on many imports from Brazil as punishment for putting the man dubbed “the Trump of the Tropics” in the dock.
Asked Tuesday about a possible Bolsonaro conviction, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Trump was “unafraid to use the economic might, the military might of the United States of America to protect free speech around the world.”
A guilty verdict could scupper Bolsonaro’s hopes of making a Trump-style comeback to the country’s top job, with presidential elections set for next year.
Fearing his conviction is imminent, allies are pushing Congress to pass an amnesty law to save him from prison.
Bolsonaro has been following this week’s hearings from his residence in Brasilia where he has been under house arrest since August.
Lawyers say he is in ill health, suffering the effects of being stabbed in the abdomen at a 2018 campaign rally.
The judges can technically change their votes until Friday, but are considered unlikely to do so.
Only when the verdict is final would sentencing deliberations begin in a case that has gripped the nation and is being closely watched around the world.
Bolsonaro can still appeal.
The trial is the first of a Brazilian former head of state on coup charges.
AFP
AFP
