Brazil's former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has been sentenced to more than 27 years in prison for plotting a military coup and seeking to 'annihilate' the country's democracy after losing the 2022 election. The supreme court justices Cármen Lúcia Antunes Rocha and Cristiano Zanin ruled on Thursday that Bolsonaro was guilty of seeking to forcibly cling to power, meaning four of the five judges involved in the trial found him guilty.
Announcing the sentence for crimes including coup d'etat and violently attempting to abolish Brazil's democracy, supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes said Bolsonaro tried to 'annihilate the essential pillars of the democratic rule-of-law state', with the greatest consequence being 'the return of dictatorship to Brazil'. Delivering her decisive vote, Rocha denounced an attempt to 'sow the malignant seed of anti-democracy' but celebrated that 'Brazilian democracy was not shaken'.
Earlier, Moraes and Flávio Dino had declared Bolsonaro guilty of leading what Moraes called 'a criminal organisation' that sought to plunge Brazil back into dictatorship. The plot unfolded between July 2021 and January 2023, culminating in the 8 January 2023 uprising when Bolsonaro supporters ransacked the supreme court, presidential palace and congress after leftwing winner Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took power.
A fifth judge, Luiz Fux, voted to absolve Bolsonaro, claiming there was 'absolutely no proof' the former president was aware of an alleged plot to assassinate Lula and Moraes or had tried to stage a coup. However, Fux voted to convict two of Bolsonaro's closest allies – former defence minister Gen Walter Braga Netto and former aide-de-camp Lt Col Mauro Cid – for violently attempting to abolish democracy, concluding they helped plan and bankroll a plot to murder Moraes.
Seven other close allies were also convicted, including former defence ministers Netto and Gen Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira, former minister for institutional security Gen Augusto Heleno, former navy commander Adm Almir Garnier Santos, former spy chief Alexandre Ramagem, former justice minister Anderson Torres, and Cid. Outside the supreme court, leftwing celebrations erupted as Rocha sealed Bolsonaro's fate, with Workers' party leader Lindbergh Farias declaring: 'Brazil is saying: Coups are a crime!'
