Court poised to decide if Bolsonaro will stand trial over coup attempt accusation

RIO DE JANEIRO — A panel of Brazil’s Supreme Court justices will gather on Tuesday to determine whether former President Jair Bolsonaro and close allies will stand trial on five counts, including attempting to stage a coup.

Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet charged Bolsonaro last month with plotting a coup after he lost the 2022 election to his opponent and current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Part of that plan allegedly included poisoning Lula and killing Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, a foe of Bolsonaro.

Five Supreme Court justices — including de Moraes, the rapporteur — will meet from 9:30 a.m. local time in Brasilia to rule on the charges leveled by Gonet. If a majority votes in favor, the accused will become defendants in a criminal case.

Bolsonaro and his alleged accomplices also stand accused of participating in an armed criminal organization, attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, damage qualified by violence and a serious threat against the state’s assets, and deterioration of listed heritage.

Bolsonaro has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and says that he’s being politically persecuted.

Under Brazilian law, a coup conviction alone carries a sentence of up to 12 years, but combined with the other charges, he could be sentenced to decades behind bars.

Observers say that it’s likely that the charges will be accepted.

“There is no shadow of a doubt that there are very clear elements” that crimes were committed, said Thiago Bottino, a law professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a think tank and university. “The current tendency is that there will be a criminal trial.”

Gonet filed charges against a total of 34 people in February. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will analyze whether to accept charges against eight of them. As well as Bolsonaro, the court will vote on the accusations faced by former Defense Ministers Walter Braga Netto and Paulo Sérgio Nogueira and ex-Justice Minister Anderson Torres, among others. The court will decide on the others’ fates later on.

Bolsonaro has sought to shore up political support before the possible trial, including by holding a protest on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro on March 16.

Local media reported that around 18,000 people attended the rally, based on figures from a monitoring project linked to the University of Sao Paulo. Bolsonaro’s allies had hoped to draw a crowd of 1 million, which led some analysts to say that his ability to mobilize voters is diminishing.

Bolsonaro called on social media Sunday for a new demonstration on April 6, to be held on one of Sao Paulo’s main arteries, Avenida Paulista.

As with the protest earlier this month, the former president and his allies will push for Congress to grant amnesty to those in jail for their roles in the Jan. 8, 2023 riot, when Bolsonaro’s die-hard fans stormed and trashed the Supreme Court, Presidential Palace and Congress a week after Lula took office.

In his indictment of Bolsonaro and others linked to him, Gonet said that the rampage was a last-ditch attempt to hold onto power.

Bolsonaro, a former military officer who was known to express nostalgia for the country’s 1964-1985 dictatorship, openly defied Brazil’s judicial system during his 2019-2022 term in office.

He has already been banned by Brazil’s top electoral court from running in elections until 2030 over abuse of power while in office and casting unfounded doubts on the country’s electronic voting system.

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