Brazilian authorities have charged the country’s far-right former president, Jair Bolsonaro, and dozens of his supporters with attempting to stage a coup to overturn his 2022 election loss, the country’s top prosecutor has announced.
Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet said on Tuesday that he had filed charges with Brazil’s Supreme Court against Bolsonaro and 33 other people, including some former ministers and an ex-navy chief. “The responsibility for acts harmful to the democratic order falls upon a criminal organization led by Jair Messias Bolsonaro, based on an authoritarian project of power,” the charging document stated.
Bolsonaro, a former army captain who served as president from 2019 to 2022, is unlikely to be arrested before his trial unless Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is overseeing the case, deems him a flight risk.
The indictment marks the first time Brazilian authorities have charged the right-wing populist leader with a crime, and represents a new blow to the 69-year-old, who had been plotting his increasingly unlikely political comeback.
The charges come following a two-year Brazilian federal police investigation – which concluded in November – into Bolsonaro’s role leading an election-denying movement that culminated in thousands of his supporters rioting in the country’s capital, Brasilia, in January 2023.
The riots took place a week after leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office after narrowly defeating Bolsonaro in the 2022 national election.
Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed Brazil’s presidential palace, Congress and the Supreme Court in scenes reminiscent of the January 6, 2021 insurrection in Washington, DC, when United States President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol building.
Credit: ALJAZEERA