Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro’s motion was unanimously rejected on Friday by the justices on the Brazil Supreme Court panel considering his appeal.
The case’s rapporteur, Justice Alexandre de Moraes, dismissed all defence arguments as “unfeasible” and declared that the sentencing was complete. Justices Flávio Dino, Cristiano Zanin, and Cármen Lúcia subsequently backed him.
The panel’s votes must be submitted by Nov 14 for the decision to be finalised. Justices may alter their votes before then, albeit this is improbable.
Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years and three months in jail after being found guilty in September of launching a coup after losing the 2022 election. Since August, he has been placed under house arrest.
On Oct 28, his legal team filed an appeal to have the sentence reduced. Bolsonaro should not be found guilty of both plotting a coup and trying to violently overthrow democracy, according to the defence, which contends that the allegations overlap and that cumulative punishments are unfair.
Bolsonaro has refuted any wrongdoing. After losing the 2022 election to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a scheme that authorities claimed included plans to assassinate Lula, he was found guilty of staging a coup. His involvement in an armed criminal organisation and his desire to violently abolish the democratic rule of law were among the other charges for which he was found guilty.
Additionally, they referenced Justice Luiz Fux, the lone opposing vote in the five-member panel that found Bolsonaro guilty. He argued that even if Bolsonaro had attempted a coup, he “deliberately interrupted the course of events” and failed to carry it out.
Fux, however, has now left the panel and will not take part in the appeals’ review.
According to De Moraes, there was enough proof that Bolsonaro knew about the coup attempt to maintain his power.
“It was also demonstrated that the appellant acted freely and knowingly to spread false information about the electronic voting system and to draft a coup decree, which constituted the practice of a coup d’état and a violent attempt to abolish the rule of law,” he said.
Bolsonaro won’t begin serving prison sentences until all appeals have been considered.
The trial garnered international attention. US President Donald Trump imposed a 50 percent tariff on imports from Brazil, citing Bolsonaro’s case as part of what he described as a “witch hunt.”
This led to a precipitous deterioration in US-Brazil relations, which experts regarded as the lowest point in their more than 200-year history.
Relationships are now better. After speaking over the phone, Lula and Trump met at the ASEAN summit in Malaysia last month.