The general prosecutor has accused Jair Bolsonaro of involvement in a plot to assassinate a rival after the 2022 election
Brazil’s prosecutor general has charged former President Jair Bolsonaro with attempting a coup to stay in power after his election defeat in 2022. The charges include a plot to kill his successor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Lula returned as Brazil’s president in January 2023 for a third, non-consecutive term after narrowly defeating Bolsonaro in October 2022. Following the vote, Bolsonaro argued that the race had been stolen from him, claiming that a “malfunction” had affected thousands of electronic voting machines.
Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet said on Tuesday that the former president and his running mate, General Walter Braga Netto, who was arrested on Saturday, were leading a “criminal organization” that was planning to seize control of the country, AP reported. The charges also include plotting to poison the current president and assassinate Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.
“The plan was conceived and taken to the knowledge of the president [Bolsonaro], and he agreed to it,” according to Gonet’s 272-page indictment, as seen by the news agency.
A total of 34 individuals were reportedly charged in the plot, including several military officials, such as Bolsonaro’s former national security adviser, retired General Augusto Heleno, and former Navy Commander Almir Garnier Santos.
Bolsonaro’s lawyers denied the charges, saying they viewed the accusations with “dismay and indignation.” They also insisted that the former president “has never agreed to any movement aimed at deconstructing the democratic rule of law or the institutions that underpin it.”
The latest charges followed a two-year police probe into the election-denial movement that led to riots by Bolsonaro’s supporters in the capital in early 2023, a week after President Lula took office.
At the time, Bolsonaro was in the US but later called for an end to the unrest and endorsed the transition to Lula’s government. He has since been banned from holding public office in Brazil until 2030.
In November, the federal police released a report accusing Bolsonaro of playing a central role in planning and organizing an attempted coup – allegedly proposing the idea to key military figures – in an effort to prevent Lula from taking office.
According to analysts as cited by Reuters, Bolsonaro is not likely to be arrested before the trial, unless Supreme Court Justice Moraes, who is overseeing the case, deems the former president a flight risk.
