Prosecutor charges ex-President Bolsonaro over alleged coup plot

Brazil’s chief prosecutor has accused former President Jair Bolsonaro of leading an attempted coup after the ex-leader was defeated by his left-wing rival in the 2022 presidential election.

According to the prosecutor, the alleged plot aimed to prevent Bolsonaro’s successor in office, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from taking office and included a plan to poison Lula.

Bolsonaro, 69, denies any wrongdoing and says he is the victim of a political witch hunt.

It is now up to Brazil’s Supreme Court to decide whether to accept the prosecutor’s charges and put Bolsonaro and 33 other accused on trial.

In a sign of how divided Brazil remains two-and-a-half years after the bitterly fought presidential election, critics of Bolsonaro celebrated news of the charges, saying that the former president belonged in jail, while his supporters insisted he was innocent.

The focus is now on Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who will have to weigh up the merits of the accusations made by the chief prosecutor and decide whether the case should proceed to the trial stage.

There is no deadline for Mr Moraes to make his decision, but legal experts quoted in Brazilian media said they expected him to rule in favour of a trial, which could get under way later this year.

Political analysts say a potential trial could have an impact on the 2026 presidential election.

While Bolsonaro is barred from running for office until 2030 for falsely claiming that Brazil’s voting system was vulnerable to fraud, he remains a strong political force.

Many think he could use a potential trial as a platform for his agenda.

In his 272-page report, Attorney-General Paulo Gonet said that he had concluded that Bolsonaro and the 33 other accused had formed a criminal group which had tried to instigate a coup against Lula’s newly elected government – an allegation those named have denied.

The document alleges that Bolsonaro and his vice-presidential candidate Walter Braga Netto led the group.

“Allied with other individuals, including civilians and military personnel, they attempted to prevent, in a co-ordinated manner, the result of the 2022 presidential elections from being fulfilled,” it reads.

According to the report, the alleged plot included a plan to poison Lula and shoot dead Alexandre de Moraes – the same Supreme Court justice now tasked with deciding whether the case should proceed to trial.

The prosecutor’s charges are based on a police investigation into the events leading up to 8 January 2023, when Bolsonaro supporters stormed government buildings in the capital, Brasilia.

Parts of the buildings were ransacked and police arrested 1,500 people.

Bolsonaro was in the United States at the time and has always denied any links to the rioters. But the prosecutor’s report alleges that he started sowing doubts about Brazil’s voting system as early as July 2021, which are thought to have encouraged those storming Congress.

Lawyers representing the former president said they were “astonished” by the accusations levelled against their client and insisted that he had never supported any movement aimed at dismantling Brazil’s democratic rule of law or the institutions that uphold it.

The said the prosecutor had come up with a “fanciful narrative” that would not stand up to legal scrutiny.