Raphael Kanu
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison after being found guilty of plotting a military coup to stay in power following his 2022 election defeat.
A panel of five Supreme Court justices delivered the ruling just hours after convicting the former far-right leader. Four justices voted to convict, while one dissented. Bolsonaro, 70, was also barred from holding public office until 2033.
His lawyers, who called the sentence “absurdly excessive,” have vowed to appeal, but legal experts say overturning the ruling will be difficult, as appeals are only admissible if at least two justices vote to acquit. Bolsonaro remains under house arrest as a flight risk.
The court found him guilty of five charges tied to his attempt to cling to power after losing to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2022. Prosecutors argued he had been laying the groundwork for a coup long before the election, spreading unfounded claims of electoral fraud, urging military intervention, and even discussing an alleged plan to assassinate Lula, his running mate, and a Supreme Court justice.
Seven of Bolsonaro’s close allies, including two former defence ministers, a former spy chief, and a former security minister, were also convicted. Although the conspiracy failed to rally enough military backing, it culminated in the storming of Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court, and presidential palace on 8 January 2023, when thousands of Bolsonaro supporters rioted in Brasília.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversaw the trial, warned that Brazil had narrowly escaped authoritarian rule. “We are slowly forgetting that Brazil almost returned to its 20-year dictatorship because a criminal organisation, comprised of a political group, doesn’t know how to lose elections,” he said.
Justice Cármen Lúcia, who cast the decisive third “guilty” vote, likened the attempted coup to a “virus” threatening democracy, saying, “there was no immunity to authoritarianism.”
The lone dissenting justice, Luiz Fux, argued in an 11-hour speech that the accusations were unproven and called for Bolsonaro’s acquittal.
Bolsonaro has denounced the trial as a political “witch hunt” designed to block a possible comeback, despite already being barred from contesting the 2026 presidential election over separate charges. His stance has been echoed by allies abroad, including former U.S. President Donald Trump, who compared Bolsonaro’s conviction to his own legal troubles and said he found the verdict “very surprising.”
Current U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the ruling unjust and threatened retaliation, prompting Brazil’s foreign ministry to issue a sharp rebuke, saying that “threats… will not intimidate our democracy.”
With a sentence that could keep him behind bars for the rest of his life, Bolsonaro’s legal team is now expected to push for house arrest instead of prison, even as appeals loom. His conviction is likely to further polarise Brazil, where his supporters see him as a victim of persecution while critics hail the verdict as a vital defence of democracy.