Spanish
Brasilia.- Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was found guilty this Thursday of having attacked the democratic order by the First Chamber of the Supreme Court, in a ruling that concluded with four votes against one.
The final vote was delivered by the president of the First Chamber, Cristiano Zanin, former lawyer of the current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, against whom Bolsonaro conspired after losing the 2022 elections, according to the court's findings.
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"The evidence allows us to conclude that the accused intended to break the democratic rule of law," said Zanin in his vote, which left a majority of four to one the conviction of Bolsonaro and seven other defendants, including former ministers and former heads of the Armed Forces.
"The Prosecution successfully described an armed criminal organization, hierarchically structured and aimed at pursuing a project" focused on "the permanence in power of President Bolsonaro, whatever the criminal method to be used," Zanin assured.
After the guilty plea, the five judges will discuss, in principle this Friday, the sentences to be applied, which can reach 43 years in prison.
Bolsonaro and the other seven defendants are charged with the crimes of abolishing the democratic rule of law, coup d'état, criminal organization, damage to protected heritage, and qualified damage.
In Bolsonaro's case, the accusation made by the Attorney General's Office includes an aggravating factor, as it considers him the "leader" of the "criminal organization" that attempted to prevent Lula from taking office, after his victory in the 2022 elections against the far-right leader.
According to the accusation filed by the Attorney General's Office and accepted by four of the five judges, the conspiracy began in June 2021, just over a year before the elections and when Lula was beginning to gain ground in the polls.
The plot was developed in various phases and began with a harsh discrediting campaign against the country's institutions and electoral system led by Bolsonaro himself, according to the accusation.
The conspiracy moved from words to deeds after Lula won the October 2022 elections, with intense protests, thwarted attacks by the Police, and camps at the gates of the barracks in which thousands of Bolsonaristas demanded that the Army prevent Lula's inauguration.
The progressive leader finally assumed power on January 1, 2023, and, a week later, thousands of far-right activists left one of those camps in Brasilia to violently assault the headquarters of the Presidency, Parliament, and the Supreme Court itself.
According to the Prosecutor's Office, that action was the corollary of a coup plot that, according to the accusation, was "led" and personally directed by Bolsonaro, with the aim of "perpetuating himself in power" and installing "a dictatorship" in Brazil.
