São Paulo, Brazil – Former President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday was formally charged in connection to an alleged coup plot to overthrow Brazil’s government in early 2023.
Brazil’s Prosecutor General’s Office announced the charges against Bolsonaro and 33 others in the alleged plot to overturn the country’s democratic order following Bolsonaro’s loss to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the October 2022 presidential election.
On January 8, 2023, just ahead of Lula’s planned inauguration, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed Brazil’s government headquarters in Brasília, inflicting millions of dollars in damage on the country’s Supreme Court, Congress and the Planalto Palace, the official workplace of the president.
In November, the Federal Police had indicted Bolsonaro and 36 of his allies in the military and security services for conspiring to plan the alleged coup.
Now, the Prosecutor General’s Office has reviewed the case and decided to proceed to send it to the Supreme Court, potentially igniting a legal battle ahead of the country’s 2026 elections.
If convicted, Bolsonaro could reportedly face up to 28 years in prison.
Featured image credit: Pronunciamento do Presidente da República, Jair Bolsonaro em Rede Nacional de Rádio e Televisão. Photo by Isac Nóbrega/PR via Flickr: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
