Brazil’s Supreme Court on Thursday sentenced firebrand ex-president Jair Bolsonaro to 27 years in prison for coup plotting at the end of a landmark trial that divided the nation and drew US fury.
The sentence could see the 70-year-old far-right leader spend the rest of his days in jail.
Judges voted 4-1 to convict Bolsonaro of plotting to overthrow Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva following his October 2022 election defeat by the left-winger.
Prosecutors said the plan failed only due to a lack of support from military top brass.
Bolsonaro’s defense team called the sentence “incredibly excessive” and announced he would appeal, “including at the international level.”
Washington was quick to respond to the conviction of the man dubbed “the Trump of the tropics” on his election in 2019.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States “will respond accordingly” to what he called a politically motivated “witch hunt.”
Brazil’s foreign ministry hit back, saying it would not be intimidated by Rubio’s “threats.”
– A ‘good man’ –
Trump, who levied steep tariffs on Brazil as punishment over Bolsonaro’s prosecution, labeled the verdict “very surprising.”
He praised Bolsonaro as a “good president” and “good man” and said his legal woes were “very much like they tried to do with me.”
While the Supreme Court had already garnered the simple majority of three votes needed for his conviction at the fourth vote, it only became final after the last of the five judges issued his decision.
“An armed criminal organization was formed by the defendants, who must be convicted based on the factual circumstances I consider proven,” said the fifth judge, Cristiano Zanin, Lula’s former lawyer.
Bolsonaro’s seven co-accused, including former ministers and military chiefs, were also convicted.
The former army captain, who served a single term from 2019 to 2022, claims he is the victim of political persecution.
Speaking outside his father’s home in Brasilia, Bolsonaro’s lawmaker son Flavio Bolsonaro said the politician was “holding his head high in the face of this persecution, because history will show that we are on the right side.”
He added that his father’s allies would act with “all their might” to secure Congress’s support for an amnesty bill.
– ‘Political’ –
Bolsonaro’s conviction came after one of the biggest and most divisive trials in Brazil’s recent history, which ended with a nail-biting vote that stretched over four days.
Apart from heading a “criminal organization,” the former senator was charged with knowing of a plan to assassinate Lula, his vice president Geraldo Alckmin and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre Moraes.
Bolsonaro was also found guilty of inciting the violent 2023 storming of the Supreme Court, presidential palace and Congress in Brasilia by hundreds of his supporters, a week after Lula was inaugurated as his successor.
He himself did not attend the verdict hearings in the capital Brasilia, instead following the proceedings from his residence, where he is under house arrest.
Across the nation, Brazilians were glued to the proceedings on TV and social media.
In one Brasilia bar, patrons watching the trial on a giant screen burst into applause after he was convicted.
“After so much waiting, this despicable individual is being sent to jail,” translator Virgilio Soares, 46, said.
But Germano Cavalcante, a 60-year-old civil engineer, called the trial “unfair.”
– A country divided –
The case drove a deep wedge through Brazilian society, between those primarily on the left who saw it as a vital test of the country’s democracy, from those mainly on the right who viewed it as a political show trial.
It also led to an unprecedented crisis in relations between the United States and longtime ally Brazil.
Besides the tariffs punishment, Washington has also sanctioned Moraes and other Supreme Court judges.
Bolsonaro is the fourth former Brazilian president to be convicted since the return to democracy in 1985 after a two-decade military dictatorship.
Lula spent 19 months in prison in 2018-2019 on corruption charges that were later overturned.
The 79-year-old political veteran, whose popularity had plummeted before Bolsonaro’s trial, has been boosted by the standoff with the United States.
He has styled himself the guardian of Brazil’s sovereignty in the face of alleged US meddling in its affairs and indicated he will run for reelection next year.
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© Agence France-Presse
