BRASILIA, Brazil: A panel of Brazilian Supreme Court justices sentenced former president Jair Bolsonaro to 27 years and three months in prison Thursday after convicting him of attempting a coup to remain in office despite his 2022 electoral defeat.
Bolsonaro, who has always denied any wrongdoing, is currently under house arrest in Brasilia. He can appeal the ruling.
Four of the five justices reviewing the case in the panel found the far-right politician guilty on five counts, in a ruling that will deepen political divisions and likely prompt a backlash from the United States government. It makes Bolsonaro is the first former Brazilian president to be convicted of attempting a coup.
US President Donald Trump said that he was “very unhappy” with the conviction. Speaking to reporters as he departed the White House, he said he always found Bolsonaro to be “outstanding.”
The conviction, he added, is “very bad for Brazil.”
Bolsonaro could face decades in prison
The sentence doesn’t mean he will immediately go to prison. The court panel has now up to 60 days to publish the ruling. Once it does, Bolsonaro’s lawyers have five days to file motions for clarification.
One of the justices, Cármen Lúcia, said she was convinced by the evidence the Attorney General’s Office presented against the former president. “He is the instigator, the leader of an organization that orchestrated every possible move to maintain or seize power,” she said.
Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president’s eldest son, said on X the conviction was a “supreme persecution” and that history would show they were on the right side.
Trial has divided Brazilians
The trial has been followed by a divided society, with people backing the process against the former president, while others still support him. Some have taken to the streets to back the far-right leader who contends he is being politically persecuted.
Bolsonaro’s trial got renewed attention after Trump linked a 50 percent tariff on imported Brazilian goods to his ally’s legal situation, calling it a ” witch hunt.” Observers say the US might announce new sanctions against Brazil after the trial, further straining their fragile diplomatic relations.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is overseeing the case, said Tuesday that Bolsonaro was the leader of a coup plot and of a criminal organization, and voted in favor of convicting him.
Lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro, one of the former president’s sons, on Thursday talk about his father on his social media platforms. But instead of mentioning his father’s conviction, he pushed for his amnesty, which he is seeking through Congress.
“It is time to do nothing less than what is correct, just,” he said.
Bolsonaro remains a political force
Fux, in his dissenting opinion on Wednesday, disagreed with de Moraes and the other two justices.
“No one can be punished for cogitation,” Fux said. “A coup d’état does not result from isolated acts or individual demonstrations lacking coordination, but rather from the actions of organized groups, equipped with resources and strategic capacity to confront and replace the incumbent power.”
Earlier Thursday, Lúcia also voted to convict Bolsonaro of organized crime in connection with the alleged coup attempt.
Lúcia allowed de Moraes to interrupt her vote and play several videos that showed Bolsonaro in front of thousands of supporters between 2021 and 2023 urging him to leave the Supreme Court. De Moraes also showed footage of some destruction inside the court’s headquarters after the riots on Jan. 8, 2023.
Bolsonaro faced accusations he attempted to illegally hang onto power after his 2022 electoral defeat to current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Prosecutors charged Bolsonaro with counts including attempting to stage a coup, being part of an armed criminal organization, attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, as well as being implicated in violence and posing a serious threat to the state’s assets and listed heritage.
“Bolsonaro attempted a coup in this country, and there is hundreds of pieces of evidence,” Lula said early Thursday in an interview with local TV Band, ahead of the trial.
Bolsonaro already barred from running for office
Despite his legal woes, Bolsonaro remains a powerful political player in Brazil.
The far-right politician had been previously banned from running for office until 2030 in a separate case. He is expected to choose an heir who is likely to challenge President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva next year.
The ruling may push Bolsonaro’s allied lawmakers to seek some amnesty for him through Congress.
After the court panel debates on Bolsonaro’s sentence, the embattled former leader could face increased pressure to pick a political heir to likely challenge Lula in the general elections next year.
“There is a God in heaven who sees everything, who loves justice and hates iniquity,” former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro wrote on social media.
Brazilian Supreme Court panel sentences Bolsonaro to more than 27 years in prison for coup attempt
https://arab.news/nd624
Brazilian Supreme Court panel sentences Bolsonaro to more than 27 years in prison for coup attempt
- Three judges so far have voted to convict, one acquitted, and one remains to vote
- Result likely to further enrage Bolsonaro’s close ally Donald Trump, who has already called the case a ‘witch hunt’
Trump says Zelensky ‘isn’t ready’ yet to accept US-authored proposal to end Russia-Ukraine war
- Trump said he was “disappointed” and suggested that the Ukrainian leader is holding up the talks from moving forward
- He also claimed Russia is “fine with it” even though Putin last week had said that aspects of Trump’s proposal were unworkable
KYIV, Ukraine: President Donald Trump on Sunday claimed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “isn’t ready” to sign off on a US-authored peace proposal aimed at ending the Russia-Ukraine war.
Trump was critical of Zelensky after US and Ukrainian negotiators completed three days of talks on Saturday aimed at trying to narrow differences on the US administration’s proposal. But in an exchange with reporters on Sunday night, Trump suggested that the Ukrainian leader is holding up the talks from moving forward.
“I’m a little bit disappointed that President Zelensky hasn’t yet read the proposal, that was as of a few hours ago. His people love it, but he hasn’t,” Trump claimed in an exchange with reporters before taking part in the Kennedy Center Honors. The president added, “Russia is, I believe, fine with it, but I’m not sure that Zelensky’s fine with it. His people love it it. But he isn’t ready.”
To be certain, Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn’t publicly expressed approval for the White House plan. In fact, Putin last week had said that aspects of Trump’s proposal were unworkable, even though the original draft heavily favored Moscow.
Trump has had a hot-and-cold relationship with Zelensky since riding into a second White House term insisting that the war was a waste of US taxpayer money. Trump has also repeatedly urged the Ukrainians to cede land to Russia to bring an end to a now nearly four-year conflict he says has cost far too many lives.
Zelensky said Saturday he had a “substantive phone call” with the American officials engaged in the talks with a Ukrainian delegation in Florida. He said he had been given an update over the phone by US and Ukrainian officials at the talks.
“Ukraine is determined to keep working in good faith with the American side to genuinely achieve peace,” Zelensky wrote on social media.
Trump’s criticism of Zelensky came as Russia on Sunday welcomed the Trump administration’s new national security strategy in comments by the Kremlin spokesman published by Russia’s Tass news agency.
Dmitry Peskov said the updated strategic document, which spells out the administration’s core foreign policy interests, was largely in line with Moscow’s vision.
“There are statements there against confrontation and in favor of dialogue and building good relations,” he said, adding that Russia hopes this would lead to “further constructive cooperation with Washington on the Ukrainian settlement.”
The document released Friday by the White House said the US wants to improve its relationship with Russia after years of Moscow being treated as a global pariah and that ending the war is a core US interest to “reestablish strategic stability with Russia.”
Speaking on Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum, Trump’s outgoing Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, said efforts to end the war were in “the last 10 meters.”
He said a deal depended on the two outstanding issues of “terrain, primarily the Donbas,” and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
Russia controls most of Donbas, its name for the Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk regions, which, along with two southern regions, it illegally annexed three years ago. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is in an area that has been under Russian control since early in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and is not in service. It needs reliable power to cool its six shutdown reactors and spent fuel, to avoid any catastrophic nuclear incidents.
Kellogg, who is due to leave his post in January, was not present at the talks in Florida.
Separately, officials said the leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Germany would participate in a meeting with Zelensky in London on Monday.
As the three days of talks wrapped up, Russian missile, drone and shelling attacks overnight and Sunday killed at least four people in Ukraine.
A man was killed in a drone attack on Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region Saturday night, local officials said, while a combined missile and drone attack on infrastructure in the central city of Kremenchuk caused power and water outages. Kremenchuk is home to one of Ukraine’s biggest oil refineries and is an industrial hub.
Kyiv and its Western allies say Russia is trying to cripple the Ukrainian power grid and deny civilians access to heat, light and running water for a fourth consecutive winter, in what Ukrainian officials call “weaponizing” the cold.
Three people were killed and 10 others wounded Sunday in shelling by Russian troops in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, according to the regional prosecutor’s office.
