Posted on 09/11/25
| News Source: Arutz-7
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced on Thursday to 27 years and three months in prison after a Supreme Court panel convicted him of plotting a coup.
The verdict was handed down hours after Brazil’s Supreme Court reached the majority three votes needed to convict Bolsonaro, AFP reported.
Judge Carmen Lucia became the third of five judges to find the 70-year-old conservative leader guilty of conspiring to seize power after his defeat in the October 2022 elections to leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
"The law must apply equally to all," Lucia told the court, underscoring the case's immense significance. She voted to convict him on the charge of leading a "criminal organization," though her votes on the four other charges are still pending.
Brazilian prosecutors have blamed Bolsonaro's statements against the country's voting system for a violent invasion of the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court in January of 2023 by supporters angry about Bolsonaro’s electoral loss to da Silva.
In June of that year, a Brazilian court barred Bolsonaro from holding public office for eight years.
Prosecutors also allege that part of the plan involved an attempt to assassinate Lula, his vice president, and a Supreme Court minister.
Bolsonaro, who served as Brazil's president from 2019-2022, claims he is the victim of a politically motivated persecution. His ally, US President Donald Trump, has echoed this sentiment, branding the trial a "witch hunt" and retaliating with 50 percent tariffs on an array of Brazilian imports.