Brazil’s Supreme Court on Thursday convicted firebrand ex-president Jair Bolsonaro of plotting a coup, sealing his fate with a 4-1 vote that could send him to prison for the rest of his life.
All but one judge found the 70-year-old guilty of plotting to overthrow Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva following his October 2022 elections defeat by the left-winger.
While the court had already garnered the simple majority of three votes needed for his conviction, it only become final after the fifth and final judge issued his decision.
Bolsonaro’s seven co-accused, including former ministers and military chiefs, were also convicted.
“An armed criminal organization was formed by the defendants, who must be convicted based on the factual circumstances I consider proven,” the last judge to vote, Cristiano Zanin, said.
Bolsonaro, Brazil’s president from 2019-2022, could be sentenced to more than 40 years after being found guilty on all five charges.
The former army captain claims he is the victim of political persecution.
His ally US President Donald Trump has branded the trial a “witch hunt” and slapped 50 percent tariffs on an array of Brazilian imports as retaliation.
Bolsonaro’s conviction came after one of the biggest, most divisive trials in Brazil’s recent history.
The only judge to return a not guilty finding, Luiz Fux, dismissed the trial as “political.”
Bolsonaro himself did not attend the verdict hearings in the capital Brasilia, instead following the proceedings from his residence, where he is under house arrest.
Across the nation, Brazilians were glued to the proceedings on TV and social media.
In one Brasilia bar, patrons watching the trial on a giant screen burst into applause after he was convicted.
“After so much waiting, this despicable individual is being sent to jail,” translator Virgilio Soares, 46, said.
But Germano Cavalcante, a 60-year-old civil engineer, called the trial “unfair.”
Apart from heading a “criminal organization,” Bolsonaro was charged with knowing of a plan to assassinate Lula, his vice president Geraldo Alckmin and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre Moraes.
He was also convicted of inciting the violent 2023 storming of the Supreme Court, presidential palace and Congress in Brasilia by hundreds of his supporters, a week after Lula was inaugurated as his successor.
The rioters called in vain for the military to oust Lula.
The trial drove a deep wedge through Brazilian society, between those primarily on the left who see it as a vital test of the country’s democracy, from those mainly on the right who view it as a political show trial.
Fearing his conviction, Bolsonaro’s allies have for weeks been pushing Congress to pass an amnesty law to save their man from prison.
The case has led to an unprecedented crisis in relations between the United States and longtime ally Brazil.
Besides the tariffs punishment, Washington has also sanctioned Moraes and other Supreme Court judges.
AFP
