Pressing pressure on Bolsonaro as the first of five judges finds him guilty

The first of the five Supreme Court judges to resolve the fate of former Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, found the former leader guilty of plotting a coup.

But Bolsonaro will only be condemned if at least three of the five judges find him guilty.

Justice Alexander de Moraes said he “undoubtedly” that he had an attempt to coup after Bolsonaro lost the 2022 presidential election to his left rival Luis Inacio Lula da Silva.

Moraes also said that Bolsonaro had led the “criminal organization”, which he claims to be behind the coup attempt. Bolsonaro denied all the accusations.

If convicted, Bolsonaro – who has ruled Brazil from January 2019 to December 2022 – may be sentenced to a prolonged sentence of over 40 years in prison.

Read: What do you need to know about the Bolsonaro plot test

The accusations against Bolsonaro are extremely serious and justice Moraes – from whom he was expected to condemn Bolsonaro – did not restrain himself in the summary of his decision.

The former president and his seven teammates – some of whom are senior military officers – are accused of trying to prevent the elected President Lula from holding a position.

The seven co-grandsons also denied the charges.

In court on Tuesday, justice Moraes said there was a lot of evidence of a plot to kill Lula, his vice presidential ruling half and justice himself.

Moraes showed a document describing in detail the plan, with a code name, surgery green and yellow dagger, with underlined key tabs.

“This is written in the Brazilian government, at the same time when President Jair Bolsonaro was there,” he said. He added that part of the plan was printed in the Presidential Palace.

According to investigators, the defendants have failed to attract sufficient support from the military to continue to continue.

But Moraes claims that the defendants’ efforts ended with the storming of the Congress, the Supreme Court and the Presidential Palace of thousands of Bolsonaro supporters on January 8, 2023 – a week after Lula swore to office.

The Order was quickly restored and over 1500 people were arrested.

But according to Moraes, Brazil approached the descent into authoritarianism: “We slowly forget that Brazil has almost returned to its 20-year dictatorship, as a criminal organization consisting of a political group does not know how to lose elections.”

“There is no doubt that defendant Jair Bolsonaro has encountered meetings with the armed forces commanders to discuss violation of constitutional norms,” ​​Moraes said.

The former president was not in court when justice Moraes declared his guilty vote.

Bolsonaro’s lawyers said their client was suffering from health problems. The 70-year-old was stamped in the stomach while on the campaign path in 2018 and since then there have been recurrent health problems resulting from the incident.

His lawyers told him that he was following the procedures from his home in Brassil, where he was held under house arrest.

Since he is currently forbidden to use social media, we have not heard from him during the stage of the sentence of this process, but in the past he said that the process was politically motivated.

The former president claims to be intended to prevent him from standing in the 2026 presidential election.

However, he is already banned from running for public office by 2030 for the dissemination of unfounded rumors about the Brazil vote system.

The process has deepened the divisions in Brazil, with Bolsonaro supporters claiming that the five -member staff loaded with the case is prejudiced.

They point out the fact that one of the judges is President Lula’s personal lawyer while another serves as Minister of Justice of Lula.

Bolsonaro critics, on the other hand, say that Brazil’s institutions should act decisively when under attack. They point out the fact that democracy was restored only in 1985 after two decades of military government to support their argument.