Bolsonaro denies participation in the alleged coup plot

Former Brazil President Jeir Bolsonaro has denied his involvement in an alleged plot to overthrow the current president of the country, Luis Inasio Lula da Silva.

Speaking to court for the first time, Bolsonaro, who rules the country between 2019 and 2022, said a coup was a “disgusting thing” and had “even an opportunity for a coup in my government.”

Together with seven “co-class”, the 70-year-old youth tried out the events that led to the storming of government buildings by his supporters on January 8, 2023, a week after the inauguration of Lula.

The former president could have faced decades in prison if he was convicted. He has always denied the allegations against him.

Asked by Judge Alexander de Moraes in court on Tuesday about the alleged accusation of a coup plot, Bolsonaro said the prosecution “does not linger, Your Excellency.”

In later, he said, “I have only one thing to confirm for your excellency: on my part, by military commanders, there is never talk of a coup. The pervert is a nasty thing.”

“Brazil could not go through such an experience. And there was never a coup in my government,” he added.

Bolsonaro narrowly lost the Lula’s presidential election in 2022.

Following Lula’s victory, Bolsonaro has stepped up false claims that there were errors with electronic voting machines in the election.

The prosecutor’s office claims that Bolsonaro’s allegations of voters fraud began as early as 2021 as a pretext that could be used to put into question a possible defeat in the 2022 election.

In response, Bolsonaro said he was not the only person who trusts electronic electoral machines and stated that he had acted within the rules of the Constitution.

“Many times I rebelled, I swear. But in my opinion, I did what was to be done,” he told the court on Tuesday.

Bolsonaro is the sixth defendant to take the position since the beginning of the process in May.

The eight defendants have been charged with five charges that include an attempt to make a coup, participation in an armed criminal organization, an attempt to violence from the democratic rule of the law, the aggravated damage and the deterioration of the listed heritage.

Most have denied the allegations against them so far.

Bolsonaro, a former captain of the army and US President Donald Trump, has run Brazil from January 2019 to December 2022.

He narrowly lost the leakage of the presidential election in October 2022 to his left rival Lula.

Bolsonaro never publicly acknowledges his defeat. Many of his supporters spent weeks off the army barracks in an attempt to persuade the military from preventing Lula from sworn as a president, as scheduled on January 1, 2023.

A week after taking office of Lula, January 8, 2023, Thousands of supporters of Bolsonaro storm government buildings In the capital, Brazil in what federal investigators say it is an attempt to coup.

Bolsonaro was in the United States at that time and always denied any relationship with the rebels.

He was already forbidden to run for public office until 2030, as he fiercely claims that the Brazil vote system was vulnerable to fraud, but he announced his intention to fight this ban in order to run for a second term in 2026.