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Brazil’s Supreme Court has ordered former President Jair Bolsonaro to face trial for allegedly masterminding a military coup to cling to power after his 2022 election defeat, thrusting the far-right leader into a legal showdown that could land him behind bars for over 40 years. Bolsonaro, who led the nation from 2019 to 2022, now confronts criminal charges tied to an audacious plot to subvert democracy.
The court didn’t stop with him—seven of his inner circle were also named as defendants, accused of collaborating in a scheme involving an armed criminal network, orchestrating a coup d’état, and attempting to dismantle Brazil’s democratic framework through violence. The lineup includes his former defense ministers, General Walter Braga Netto and General Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira; ex-navy commander Admiral Almir Garnier Santos; former security minister Anderson Torres; ex-spy chief Alexandre Ramagem; former institutional security minister General Augusto Heleno; and ex-aide Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, who secured a plea deal that could lighten his sentence if convicted.
The charges stem from an alleged conspiracy to keep Bolsonaro in office after his narrow loss to leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the October 2022 presidential race. On Wednesday, five Supreme Court justices unanimously agreed there’s enough evidence to prosecute, formally designating the group as defendants. The plot reportedly took shape in the tense months between the election and the explosive far-right riots that erupted in Brasília on January 8, 2023, just days after Lula’s swearing-in.
Prosecutors claim those violent outbursts were deliberately stoked as a desperate bid to reinstall Bolsonaro, defying the electorate’s choice by sowing chaos that could trigger military action. The ruling marks a seismic shift in Brazil’s political saga, putting Bolsonaro and his allies on a collision course with justice.
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It was a veritable pitched battle … It was an extraordinarily violent attempted coup d’état, the supreme court judge Alexandre de Moraes told the court as he showed video footage of Bolsonarista hooligans vandalizing the supreme court and attacking police in the capital.
Untamed violence – utter insolence … These images leave no doubt as to the materiality and the gravity of the crimes committed, Moraes added.
In the weeks and months before the rightwing rampage in Brasília, Police claim one sub-plot – code-named “Green and Yellow Dagger” – included plans to cause social and political chaos by assassinating Lula with poison and shooting the supreme court judge Moraes dead.
Brazil’s attorney general, Paulo Gonet, told the court that police investigators had “uncovered a terrifying operation to carry out the coup, which even included killing the president and vice-president-elect, as well as that of a supreme court minister”.
Paulo Gonet, Brazil’s Prosecutor General, disclosed that one assassination plot linked to Jair Bolsonaro’s alleged coup attempt had involved the use of explosives, military ordnance, and poison. He explained to the Supreme Court that the scheme had collapsed only because the conspirators failed to secure the army commander’s support, urging the justices to proceed with a trial against Bolsonaro and his purported accomplices.
In a written statement issued after Wednesday’s ruling, Bolsonaro asserted that he was being unfairly targeted by a judicial campaign aimed at terminating his political career and silencing Brazil’s right-wing opposition. He claimed that those in authority were determined to see him imprisoned for life to prevent him from ever seeking the presidency again. He further argued that the Brazilian electorate was being denied their right to select their leader, suggesting that a country could not consider itself democratic if its most popular candidate was excluded from elections through judicial actions.
