Brazil’s supreme court has decided to put former president Jair Bolsonaro on trial over an alleged coup plot.
All five judges accepted the charges against him, related to an effort to cling to power after his election defeat in 2022.
Brazil’s prosecutor general Paulo Gonet charged Mr Bolsonaro and 33 others last month.
The plans allegedly included poisoning his successor, current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and killing a Supreme Court judge.
Ex-president Bolsonaro could face decades in prison if convicted. Pic: Associated Press.
Mr Bolsonaro has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and says he is being politically persecuted.
Coup charges carry a sentence of up to 12 years in prison, and combined with other potential crimes, the politician could face decades in prison.
Mr Bolsonaro, a former army captain, was president from January 2019 to December 2022.
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Some of the judges have said that seven of Mr Bolsonaro’s close allies may stand trial on five counts.
These include allegations of attempting to stage a coup, participating in an armed criminal gang, attempted violent abolition of the rule of law, damage characterised by violence, and a serious threat against the state’s assets.
Casting his vote, Justice Flavio Dino said, “coups kill…It doesn’t matter if it happens today, the following month, or a few years later.”
The prosecutor general said on Tuesday that those facing charges wanted to keep the ex-president in power “at all costs” – and allegedly accelerated their plans once Mr Bolsonaro lost to the incumbent, Mr Lula da Silva.
Mr Gonet says that the coup did not go ahead at the 11th hour as Mr Bolsonaro failed to gain the support of the army’s commander.
He said: “Frustration overwhelmed the members of the criminal organisation who, however, did not give up on the violent seizure of power, not even after the elected president of the republic was sworn in”.
His comment references a riot led by the far-right politician’s supporters on 8 January 2023, where the presidential palace, the Supreme Court, and Congress were stormed and damaged.
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