{"id":43871,"date":"2025-09-12T14:53:47","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T21:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=43871"},"modified":"2025-09-12T14:53:47","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T21:53:47","slug":"bolsonaro-sentenced-to-27-years-in-prison-for-plotting-coup-in-brazil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/09\/12\/bolsonaro-sentenced-to-27-years-in-prison-for-plotting-coup-in-brazil\/","title":{"rendered":"BOLSONARO SENTENCED TO 27 YEARS IN PRISON FOR PLOTTING COUP IN BRAZIL"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/a>Jair Bolsonaro Trial<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brazil\u2019s Supreme Court convicted the former president of trying to cling to power after losing the 2022 election, including a plan to assassinate his opponent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Former President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil was sentenced to 27 years in prison for trying to overturn the 2022 election and planning to assassinate his opponent, Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva, the current president.CreditCredit\u2026Dado Galdieri for The New York Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Ana<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Jack<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Ana Ionova<\/a> and Jack Nicas<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reporting from Brazil\u2019s Supreme Court in the capital, Bras\u00edlia<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sept. 11, 2025 (NYTimes.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leer en espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brazil\u2019s Supreme Court on Thursday convicted former President Jair Bolsonaro of overseeing a failed conspiracy to overturn the 2022 Brazilian election in a coup plot that included disbanding courts, empowering the military and assassinating the president-elect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four of the five justices weighing the case voted to convict Mr. Bolsonaro and seven co-conspirators, including his running mate, defense minister and Navy commander, in a forceful rebuke by one of the very institutions the men sought to overthrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Bolsonaro, 70, was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison, though his lawyers are likely to request house arrest because of his health problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conviction is a landmark ruling for Latin America\u2019s largest nation. In at least 15 coups and coup attempts with links to the military since Brazil overthrew its monarchy in 1889, Thursday marked the first time the leaders of one of those plots have been convicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also could deal a definitive blow to one of Latin America\u2019s most important and influential political figures. Mr. Bolsonaro galvanized a right-wing movement that transformed Brazil into a more polarized and, in some ways, conservative nation \u2014 but his conviction now leaves the right without a clear leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, the ruling will very likely escalate the conflict<\/a> between Brazil and the United States. President Trump had demanded that Brazil drop the charges against Mr. Bolsonaro, saying that, like him, the former Brazilian president was being politically persecuted for trying to reverse a rigged election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Supporters of Mr. Bolsonaro protest against President Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, on Sunday in S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil.Credit\u2026Victor Moriyama for The New York Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The White House had sought to force Brazil to drop the case with steep tariffs, a trade investigation and severe sanctions against the Supreme Court justice leading it. Instead, several Brazilian justices criticized the U.S. attempts to intervene as they voted to convict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked about Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s conviction, Mr. Trump told reporters in Washington on Thursday that he was \u201cvery unhappy about it. I know President Bolsonaro\u201d and like him, he said. \u201cI think it\u2019s a terrible thing, very terrible. I actually think it\u2019s very bad for Brazil.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s conviction relied upon troves of evidence showing that he and his inner circle had spent months undermining voters\u2019 confidence in Brazil\u2019s elections systems and then, after narrowly losing the 2022 vote<\/a>, attempted to find ways to keep him in power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plans envisaged<\/a> declaring a state of emergency that would have dissolved the Supreme Court, annulled the election result and given the military sweeping powers. It also included a plot to assassinate Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s opponent, now the president, Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva; Mr. Lula\u2019s running mate; and Alexandre de Moraes, the Supreme Court justice who had overseen the election and launched several investigations into Mr. Bolsonaro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Bolsonaro denied the charges and said he had no knowledge of an assassination plot. Instead, he testified that he sought ways within Brazil\u2019s Constitution to correct what he claimed was a stolen election<\/a>. (A review by Brazil\u2019s military found no evidence of electoral fraud.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For months, Mr. Bolsonaro and his allies have called the case an abuse of power by the Supreme Court to politically oppress him and smother his movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ImageDuring Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s trial, security was tightened outside Brazil\u2019s Supreme Court in Bras\u00edlia, the capital.Credit\u2026Dado Galdieri for The New York Times<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe never intended to stage a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat. This is effectively a political movement being judged, not just its leadership,\u201d Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s lawyer, Paulo Cunha Bueno, said in an interview before the verdict. A conviction, he added, \u201cwill leave a scar on the court\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the trial marched toward a verdict over the last two weeks, Mr. Bolsonaro found himself abandoned by some allies accused of plotting the coup alongside him. That included his former defense minister, whose lawyer claimed he had tried to persuade the former president to abandon the plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also faced damaging testimony from his personal secretary and records showing that the assassination plot<\/a> was printed out and brought to the presidential palace, among other evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of the turmoil also played out publicly. Mr. Bolsonaro openly spread misinformation about voter fraud; Brazil\u2019s highway police stopped voters in left-leaning districts on Election Day; and, a week after Mr. Lula\u2019s inauguration, thousands of Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s supporters stormed Brazil\u2019s halls of power<\/a> in a failed bid to induce a military takeover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ImageThe plot Mr. Bolsonaro was convicted of organizing included the assassination of his opponent, Mr. Lula, seen here campaigning for president in S\u00e3o Paulo in 2022.Credit\u2026Victor Moriyama for The New York Times<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s conviction was widely expected, a view reinforced by the makeup of the five-member panel of Supreme Court justices judging the case. In addition to Justice Moraes, whom Mr. Bolsonaro attacked openly, the panel includes a justice who was Mr. Lula\u2019s former personal lawyer, and another who is Mr. Lula\u2019s former justice minister and close ally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That led Mr. Bolsonaro to place his faith in a Hail Mary from abroad: Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For months, one of Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s sons has lobbied the White House<\/a> to help his father avoid a prison sentence. Then, in July, Mr. Trump stepped in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His government levied eye-watering 50 percent tariffs on Brazil that have pushed the nation toward China, and then it hit Justice Moraes with some of the harshest sanctions the United States has at its disposal, usually reserved for people who have committed human rights abuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White House has cited Justice Moraes\u2019 aggressive campaign to combat what he says are threats against Brazil\u2019s democracy, including moves to jail people for threatening the court, censor voices online and block entire social networks across Brazil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even as Brazil has stood its ground, it is now bracing<\/a> for further punitive measures in response to Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s conviction. The Trump administration has made clear<\/a> that it is ready to continue the fight, casting both Mr. Trump and Mr. Bolsonaro as victims of a global attempt to muzzle conservative voices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Bolsonaro, a former Army captain turned longtime congressman, was elected president in 2018, lifted to power by a wave of voter frustration over corruption and crime. At the time, his most potent adversary, Mr. Lula, was in prison on a corruption conviction that was later thrown out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He transformed Brazil\u2019s politics with his freewheeling, combative and sometimes belligerent style that included dismantling regulations, questioning the credibility of scientific findings, harshly attacking his opponents and praising the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1964 to 1985.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ImageJustice Alexandre de Moraes reads the charges during the opening session of former President Jair Bolsonaro\u2019s trial at Brazil\u2019s Supreme Court in Bras\u00edlia, in September.Credit\u2026Dado Galdieri for The New York Times<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While he and Mr. Trump came from starkly different backgrounds, the two men shared strikingly similar approaches to politics. Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Bolsonaro pulled his nation\u2019s conservative movement further to the right and remains its standard-bearer, evidenced by the large crowds<\/a> that protested his prosecution across Brazil ahead of his conviction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opinion surveys show that nearly two-fifths of Brazil view his prosecution as unjust and that he would be the leading right-wing candidate in next year\u2019s presidential election. A previous ruling in a separate case has barred Mr. Bolsonaro from running<\/a> until the end of the decade. His conviction in the coup plot, if it stands, makes him ineligible to hold office ever again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Brazil, a country with a long history of leaders who have tried, and at times succeeded, to seize power through coups, Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s conviction was seen by many as a victory for democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As he cast his vote, Justice Moraes insisted that the evidence showed Brazil had come dangerously close to being plunged back into a dictatorship similar to the one it had endured for more than two decades, because of the actions of \u201ca political group that doesn\u2019t know how to lose an election.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s impossible to trivialize this return to dark moments in history that we\u2019ve already lived through,\u201d Justice Moraes said. \u201cAnd the evidence is abundant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the sole dissent, one justice, Luiz Fux, absolved Mr. Bolsonaro and all but two of his seven collaborators in the plot. In a scathing 14-hour presentation of his vote \u2014 which at times lulled some, including Brazil\u2019s top prosecutor, to sleep \u2014 he picked apart the evidence in the case and argued that it failed to link Mr. Bolsonaro and others to the coup plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ImageSupporters of Mr. Bolsonaro protest in Bras\u00edlia, on Sunday. Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Bolsonaro pulled his nation\u2019s conservative movement further to the right.Credit\u2026Dado Galdieri for The New York Times<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt would set a very serious precedent, it would be very dangerous to hold political agents responsible based on generic allegations,\u201d Justice Fux said, while referencing, on more than one occasion, the ill-fitting glove that helped absolve O.J. Simpson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, offering a glimmer of hope to Mr. Bolsonaro, Justice Fux questioned why the case was not being weighed by the full bench of 11 Supreme Court justices, and claimed that the defense had been given too little time to review the evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This, analysts say, could give Mr. Bolsonaro a window to appeal his conviction. Yet, given the makeup of the court, even a vote by the full bench would be expected to uphold the ruling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In total, Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s crimes had carried a maximum sentence of 43 years. He had been awaiting the verdict under house arrest, watched closely<\/a> by the police because the court deemed him a flight risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maggie Haberman contributed reporting from Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ana Ionova is a contributor to The Times based in Rio de Janeiro, covering Brazil and neighboring countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jack Nicas is The Times\u2019s Mexico City bureau chief, leading coverage of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Justices Convict Brazil Ex-Leader. Order Reprints<\/a> | Today\u2019s Paper<\/a> | Subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

See more on: Jair Bolsonaro<\/a>, Supreme Federal Court (Brazil)<\/a>, Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva<\/a>, Alexandre de Moraes<\/a>, Donald Trump<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n