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CTV News
40 minutes ago
- Politics
- CTV News
Bolsonaro co-accused testifies on plot to ‘redo' 2022 Brazil election
Brazil's former president Jair Bolsonaro speaks to the press at Congress in Brasilia, Brazil on March 26, 2025. (Eraldo Peres / AP Photo) Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro helped draft a plan to 'redo the election' he narrowly lost in 2022, a co-accused testified in the former president's coup trial on Monday. Prosecutors accused the 70-year-old far-right leader, who governed Brazil from 2019 to 2022, of having led a 'criminal organization' plotting to prevent leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva taking power. The plot failed, the charge sheet says, for a lack of military backing. Bolsonaro and six co-accused appeared in the Supreme Court on Monday to undergo questioning. A seventh took part via videoconference from prison. Former right-hand man Mauro Cid, who has turned state's witness, told the court that Bolsonaro had 'received and read' a draft decree for the declaration of a state of emergency. He then 'edited' the document, which would have paved the way for measures to 'redo the election' Lula had narrowly won, and also envisaged the imprisonment of officials. Apart from the alleged coup plot, Bolsonaro also stands accused of having been aware of plans to assassinate Lula, his vice president Geraldo Alckmin, and Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes -- an arch-foe. Bolsonaro, who is hoping to make a comeback in 2026 presidential elections despite being barred from running, denies all charges. He and his former aides risk sentences of up to 40 years behind bars. Although he has the right to remain silent, the former president told reporters he plans to respond 'without any problem' to questions from the court. 'It's an excellent idea to speak openly about the coup. I will be very happy to have the opportunity to clarify what happened,' the former army captain said last week. 'It's the moment of truth.' 'Dictator' The Supreme Court headquarters in Brasilia, where Bolsonaro will take the stand -- likely Tuesday or Wednesday -- was one of the targets of rioting supporters known as 'Bolsonaristas' -- who raided government buildings in January 2023 as they urged the military to oust Lula. Bolsonaro was abroad at the time of the last gasp effort to keep him in power, after the alleged coup planning fizzled. For the former president, the trial marked a reunion with former allies and sworn enemies including Cid, who has been labeled a traitor for testifying against his former boss. His testimony had allowed police to identify various actors in the alleged coup plot and to lay hands on compromising information, according to the investigation. Four former ministers and the former heads of Brazil's navy and intelligence agency will also be giving testimony in an in-person questioning session expected to run no later than Friday. The proceedings are broadcast live. Bolsonaro will face questions not only from prosecutors and defense attorneys, but also judge Moraes, whom the former president calls a 'dictator.' 'History' in the making Since the alleged plot was conceived over a long period, and because some of the charges are new to the Brazilian system, 'an extremely complex legal discussion' is expected, according to Rogerio Taffarello, a criminal law expert at the Getulio Vargas Foundation. New witnesses may yet be called before the court gets to closing arguments and sentencing deliberations. Bolsonaro spent the weekend with his lawyers preparing his testimony at the residence of Sao Paulo state governor Tarcisio de Freitas, local media reported. In a preliminary phase, Freitas, who served as Bolsonaro's infrastructure minister, testified his boss had 'never touched' on the subject of a coup or 'mentioned any attempt at constitutional disruption.' But two former army commanders said Bolsonaro had hosted a meeting where the declaration of a state of emergency was discussed as a means to overturn Lula's election victory. Bolsonaro's trial is the first for an attempted coup under a democratic regime in Brazil.
The Guardian
11 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Brazil braces for Bolsonaro's day in court as ex-president testifies over ‘coup plot'
Brazil's former president, Jair Bolsonaro, will finally find himself in the dock this week, accused of masterminding an armed far-right conspiracy to seize power after losing the 2022 presidential election. The 70-year-old paratrooper turned populist, who governed from 2019 until 2023, is scheduled to be interrogated by the supreme court as it seeks to untangle what federal police claim was a sprawling three-year plot to vandalize one of the world's largest democracies. Seven other alleged co-conspirators will also be questioned, including four former Bolsonaro ministers – three of them army generals; the ex-commander of the navy; and the ex-president's former right-hand man, Lt Col Mauro Cid. Bolsonaro's day in court, which is expected to come on Tuesday, is a milestone moment for a country that escaped from two decades of military dictatorship in 1985 but appears to have come perilously close to a return to authoritarian rule after the veteran leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva beat Bolsonaro in the 2022 presidential election. 'This is the first time in Brazilian history that there is the prospect of the perpetrators of a coup being brought to justice,' said Bernardo Mello Franco, a political writer for the newspaper O Globo. 'Brazilian history is full of military coups and counter-coups … but throughout history the characters [behind them] have always gone unpunished, either because they succeeded in pulling off the coup and seized control of the judiciary, or because they were granted amnesty, which is what happened after the [1964-85] military dictatorship,' Mello Franco added. Bolsonaro is accused of trying – but ultimately failing – to overturn Lula's victory through a murderous plot, which allegedly involved assassinating or arresting key political rivals including the president-elect, his vice-president-elect, Geraldo Alckmin, and the supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes. He has repeatedly denied the charges. The prospect of watching Bolsonaro go on trial has thrilled his many progressive detractors who, as well as the alleged coup attempt, blame the ex-president for rampant Amazon devastation, historic attacks on the rights of Indigenous peoples, human rights and Brazilian culture, and a calamitous and anti-scientific response to a Covid pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of people. There is broad consensus among experts that Bolsonaro will be found guilty and convicted later this year, meaning the former congressman could face political oblivion and a decades-long prison sentence. 'Bolsonaro himself believes he has already been convicted by the supreme court – he's said it on numerous occasions,' Mello Franco said. 'Those who understand the supreme court also believe he'll be found guilty. There's a great deal of evidence against him.' Last week the former head of the air force, Brig Carlos de Almeida Baptista Júnior, gave damning evidence, telling the supreme court that at one point in 2022 the former head of the army, Gen Marco Antônio Freire Gomes, threatened to arrest Bolsonaro if he sought any kind of 'institutional rupture'. But major question marks remain over whether, if convicted, Bolsonaro will ever actually serve time. Already one rightwing presidential hopeful in the 2026 election, Romeu Zema, has pledged to pardon Bolsonaro if he wins power. Polls suggest that if Lula seeks re-election he will face a tough battle against whichever rightwing candidate inherits the votes of the still-popular Bolsonaro, who has already been barred from running because of his attacks on Brazil's electronic voting system. Potential heirs include one of Bolsonaro's politician sons, Eduardo or Flávio Bolsonaro; his wife, Michelle Bolsonaro; or the conservative governors of the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Paraná, Tarcísio de Freitas, Zema and Ratinho Júnior. There are also doubts over how Bolsonaro, a notoriously rambunctious Trump-inspired populist with a huge social media following, will behave when his day in court arrives. On the eve of his appearance, Bolsonaro promised he would not use the hearing to 'lacrar', a Portuguese word which roughly translates as 'take the piss', 'troll' or 'drop the mic'. But the ex-president said his 'inquisition' would be 'worth watching' and urged followers to tune in to see that 'truth' was on his side. 'It will be broadcast live, which is bonkers,' Mello Franco said of the politically charged session, declining to forecast how Bolsonaro might behave in the dock. 'The only predictable thing about Bolsonaro is that he'll be unpredictable.'
