The previous president has been accused of 5 crimes together with trying a coup d’etat.
Brazil’s Supreme Court docket has ordered former President Jair Bolsonaro to face trial on prices of trying a coup d’etat after failing to win the re-election in 2022.
Bolsonaro, a far-right former military captain who served as Brazil’s president from 2019 to 2022, is accused of 5 crimes, together with an alleged try to violently abolish the democratic rule of regulation. He has denounced the accusations towards him as “grave and unfounded”.
On Wednesday, a five-judge panel determined unanimously to place Bolsonaro on trial. If discovered responsible within the courtroom proceedings, anticipated later this yr, Bolsonaro might face an extended jail sentence, additional isolating him. He has not named a political inheritor.
In his opening remarks, Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who’s overseeing the case, screened dramatic footage of Bolsonaro’s supporters storming authorities buildings in violent scenes that unfolded only a week after the inauguration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in January 2023.
Moraes added that Bolsonaro led “a scientific effort to solid doubt on the digital voting machines” utilized in Brazil, a part of his efforts to undermine the election he misplaced.
Reporting from Buenos Aires, Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo recalled the chaotic and violent scenes in January 2023, when Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed the capital Brasilia, refusing to just accept the brand new president’s inauguration.
“Per week after Lula was sworn in, we noticed 1000’s of supporters of President Bolsonaro storming buildings in Brazil .. there have been scenes of chaos within the capital … round 1,500 individuals have been detained,” she stated.
The Supreme Court docket started reviewing prices towards Bolsonaro and 7 of his closest allies on Tuesday in a session that Bolsonaro voluntarily attended, sitting silently within the first row in an echo of his ally, US President Donald Trump’s trial final yr.
Within the run-up to the landmark courtroom listening to, Bolsonaro known as a beachfront rally in Rio de Janeiro, hoping to grab on Lula’s waning recognition and stress Congress to go an amnesty invoice favouring him and his jailed supporters.
The demonstration, which some allies prompt might draw greater than 1,000,000 backers, was broadly thought of a washout after two impartial polling companies discovered that solely between 20,000 and 30,000 individuals confirmed up.
In the meantime, Bolsonaro has continued to insist that he’ll run for president once more subsequent yr, regardless of a ruling by Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court docket that barred him from operating for public workplace till 2030 for his efforts to discredit the nation’s voting system.
Bolsonaro’s dealing with of the COVID-19 disaster whereas president has additionally drawn intensive authorized scrutiny.
