TOKYO: Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Thursday he hopes “justice is served” to far-right former leader Jair Bolsonaro, who will stand trial on charges of plotting a coup.
The country’s Supreme Court on Wednesday decided to put Bolsonaro on trial in a case that could torpedo his hopes of making a Donald Trump-style political comeback.
It will be the first trial of an ex-leader accused of attempting to take power by force since Brazil’s return to democracy in 1985 following two decades of military dictatorship.
Bolsonaro was not in court for the unanimous ruling by the five-judge panel, but in comments to reporters he slammed the allegations as “unfounded.”
“It seems they have something personal against me,” he said.
If convicted, the 70-year-old former army captain, who had nurtured hopes of standing in elections next year, risks a jail term of over 40 years, and political banishment.
Bolsonaro, who served a single term from 2019 to 2022, is accused of leading a “criminal organization” that conspired to keep him in power regardless of the outcome of the 2022 election.
He lost to leftist rival Lula by a razor-thin margin.
Investigators say that after Bolsonaro’s defeat, but while he was still in office, the coup plotters planned to declare a state of emergency so that new elections could be held.
He is also accused of being aware of a plot to assassinate Lula, his vice president Geraldo Alckmin and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes — a Bolsonaro foe and one of the judges in the current case.
“I only hope that justice is served,” Lula told reporters on Thursday during a state visit to Japan.
“It’s obvious the former president tried to stage a coup, he knows he tried to assassinate me, he knows he tried to assassinate the vice president and everyone knows what he did,” he said.
Moraes, who has called Bolsonaro a “dictator,” was the first judge to give his findings in Wednesday’s hearing.
“There are reasonable indications from the prosecution pointing to Bolsonaro as the leader of the criminal organization,” he said.
Analysts say it is unlikely Bolsonaro will be placed in preventive custody, and he will probably stand trial as a free man to avoid perceptions of election interference.
Bolsonaro will be the second former Brazilian president in under a decade to face a criminal trial.
In July 2017, then ex-president Lula was found guilty of corruption.
He spent a year and a half in prison but had his conviction annulled by the Supreme Court and went on to win back the top office.
Bolsonaro is charged with attempting a “coup d’etat,” the “attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law” and “armed criminal organization,” among other crimes.
The prosecution says the plot did not come to fruition due to a lack of support from the army high command.
Seven alleged conspirators will be tried alongside the ex-president, including former ministers and an ex-navy commander.
Bolsonaro insists he is the victim of a political plot to obstruct his return to power.
A supporter in Sao Paulo, 44-year-old financial supervisor Cleber Fonseca, said he thought this amounted to a “political persecution” as “so far, no evidence has been shown.”
Bolsonaro’s political future had already appeared in doubt before Wednesday’s ruling.
He has been disqualified from holding public office until 2030 for having sought to cast doubt on Brazil’s electronic voting system. He had been hoping to have the ban overturned in time to stand in next year’s election.
A conviction for plotting to subvert Brazil’s democracy would likely force the political right to find a new candidate.
Dubbed the “Trump of the tropics” after the US president, his political idol, Bolsonaro has been the target of multiple investigations since his turbulent years as leader of Latin America’s biggest economy.
The latest investigation yielded a dossier of nearly 900 pages.
It also mentions the disturbances of January 8, 2023, when thousands of Bolsonaro’s backers stormed the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court demanding the military oust Lula a week after his inauguration.
Bolsonaro was in the United States at the time and says he condemned the “violent acts” committed that day.
He has consistently compared his fate to that of his “friend” Trump, who returned to the White House this year despite his own legal troubles and after a similar storming of the US Capitol by his supporters in January 2021.
“I am not dead yet,” he told reporters Wednesday in Brasilia, insisting the candidate for the right in next year’s vote “will be Bolsonaro.”
Police investigating the alleged coup plot confiscated Bolsonaro’s passport last year.