Brazil accuses Bolsonaro of trying a coup

Jair Bolsonaro, former President of Brazil, was accused on Tuesday.

The allegations given in a 272-page indictment indicate that Brazil had returned to its modern democracy for almost four decades.

Attorney General Paulo Gonet Branco stated Mr. Bolsonaro and 33 other people, including a former spy chief, Minister of Defense and National Security Advisor, who accused her of a number of crimes against Brazil’s democracy. The charges essentially adopted the Brazil Federal Police raised in November.

The case will now go to Brazil’s Supreme Court who decides whether to order Mr. Bolsonaro’s arrest and put him to court. If he were convicted, he could have 12 to 40 years in prison, although the political analysts expect a prison sentence to be shorter.

In a statement, Mr. Bolsonaro, 69, described the indictment as “weapons of the judicial system” and compared to President Trump, a political ally that he often emulates.

The allegations are “nothing more than a desperate attempt to criminalize my political movement, to mention millions of Brazilians and to vote on the next elections before a single coordination,” said Bolsonaro and added that he had handed over the power peacefully. “This is the same failed strategy used against President Trump.”

On Wednesday, hours after Mr. Bolsonaro had been charged, Mr. Trump’s media group sued the judge of the Supreme Court whether Mr. Bolsonaro was supposed to arrest, and accused the judge of censoring right -wing votes in the United States with instructions against social networks. The lawsuit seemed to be an attempt to put the judge under pressure when he decided to take the next steps in the Bolsonaro case.

Now the Brazilians can experience a trial of the Supreme Court on TV that Mr Bolsonaro could make the third president in the past eight years who is sent to prison.

That would offer a striking contrast to the United States. Mr. Bolsonaro and Mr. Trump have now been charged with the elections to be lifted. But Mr. Trump’s case was dropped when he returned to power, while Mr. Bolsonaro may be his weakest political point so far.

Brazil’s electoral court has already decided that Mr. Bolsonaro cannot take part in the presidential election next year. The Attorney General weighs two more criminal matters against him. And the judge of the Supreme Court will probably monitor this case his political arch -rival.

While the United States’ Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Trump was largely immune to law enforcement because of his actions as President, the Brazil’s Supreme Court aggressively acted against Mr. Bolsonaro and his right movement.

The court has supervised investigations, arranged arrests and censored many of the supporters of Mr. Bolsonaro on social media to argue that the anti -democratic acts of his movement requires an extraordinary answer. Now the 11 judges of the court were able to decide the fate of Mr. Bolsonaro.

“In a republic, everyone can be held accountable,” Gonet Branco wrote in a 17-page introduction to the indictment. “The President of the Republic does not decide this rule.”

The indictment describes a large number of measures that the prosecutors say, Mr. Bolsonaro and dozens of his allies – mostly current or former military members – have carried out for months. First they tried to undermine the public’s trust in the 2022 elections, and then they tried to overthrow the results after Mr. Bolsonaro lost, the indictment said. In addition, several properties were described, of which the prosecutors say that the group discussed and executed, but was ultimately abandoned.

One of these diagrams corresponded to the accuser for new elections that are monitored by its allies. The investigators said they even found the draft of a speech that Mr. Bolsonaro would hold as soon as he announced the takeover.

An even darker conspiracy, according to the prosecutors, concerns the poisoning of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Mr. Bolsonaro in the 2022 elections before he was sworn in as President and Alexandre de Moraes, the Supreme Court, who monitored the investigation, Deadly shot in Mr. Bolsonaro and would be the main funnel in his process. The assassination should be carried out by a small group of elite military agents according to the indictment, and the men had already started to pursue the movements of the judicial moraes.

According to the indictment, the attack was presented to Mr. Bolsonaro. In a WhatsApp message on December 12, 2022, one organizer of the conspiracy told another that Mr. Bolsonaro had informed him that you could carry out the attacks at any time before December 31. Mr. Lula should be inaugurated on January 1st.

“I said: ‘Come on, President. The sooner the better. We have already lost so many options, “the organizer Mário Fernandes was quoted in the message.

Mr. Fernandes denied the allegations.

In an interview last month, Mr. Bolsonaro said that he examined the idea of ​​using a “state of siege” to prevent Mr. Lula from the office because he was concerned that the elections had been manipulated. But he said that he quickly dropped the idea when it became clear that the congress would have to approve the order.

He denied to have knowledge of an assassination attempt and to blame Mr. Fernandes. “Nevertheless, I think it was just another imagination – bravery,” he said.

“Everyone is responsible for their actions,” added Bolsonaro. “Although, as far as I know, he did not take any measures.”

Brazil was ruled by a military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985. The murder of political opponents by the regime is the focus of “I’m Still here”, a Brazilian film that was nominated for the best picture at the Oscar Award this year.

Mr. Bolsonaro, a former army captain, defended the military dictatorship for a long time and credited it from the rescue of Brazil before communism. In an interview last month, he said that he would not see “I’m still here” and called it as a left -wing description of the story. “The story always has two sides,” he said.

Ju faddul Contribution to reporting from São Paulo, Brazil.