Far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro speaks to the press at Congress in Brasilia in Brazil on Wednesday.
| Photo Credit: AP
Brazil’s Supreme Court on Wednesday (March 26, 2025) ordered far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro to stand trial on charges of plotting a coup after failing to win re-election in 2022.
The trial will be the first of a former leader accused of attempting to take power by force since the start of Brazil’s transition from dictatorship to democracy in 1985.
If convicted the 70-year-old former Army captain risks a jail term of over 40 years.
Mr. Bolsonaro, who served a single term from 2019-2022, is accused of leading a “criminal organisation” that conspired to keep him in power regardless of the outcome of the 2022 election.
He lost to veteran left-winger Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva by a razor-thin margin.
Investigators say that after his defeat the coup plotters planned to issue a decree calling for new elections.
The investigators say the plotters also planned to have Lula, his Vice-President Geraldo Alckmin, and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes — a Bolsonaro arch-foe and one of the judges in the current case — assassinated.
A five-judge panel of the Supreme court voted unanimously to put Mr. Bolsonaro on trial.
Mr. Moraes, who has called Mr. Bolsonaro a “dictator,” was the first judge to give his findings in the hearing, which was broadcast live on TV.
Mr. Bolsonaro will be the second Brazilian former President in under a decade to face a criminal trial.
In July 2017, then former President Lula was found guilty of corruption.
Published – March 27, 2025 11:16 am IST