Former president has denied breaking the law, while attorney general alleges plot included a plan to poison Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro has been charged with allegedly masterminding and leading a far-right conspiracy to cling to power through a military coup. The South American country’s attorney general, Paulo Gonet, levelled the charges against the radical rightwing populist and several key allies on Tuesday night. He accused Bolsonaro and six key associates of leading a criminal organization with an “authoritarian power project”. The alleged plot, he wrote, included a plan to poison Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and shoot dead Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, a foe of the former president. Bolsonaro, who experts say could face between 38 and 43 years in jail if convicted, stands accused of crimes including being involved in an attempted coup d’état and an armed criminal association and the violent abolition of the rule of law. He has repeatedly denied breaking any laws and on Tuesday told reporters he was “not at all worried about these accusations”. The charges come three months after a bombshell 884-page federal police report accused Bolsonaro, who governed Brazil from 2019 until 2022, of playing a lead role in planning and organising a conspiracy designed to stop the leftwing victor of Brazil’s 2022 presidential election, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, taking power. Bolsonaro lost that vote to Lula but refused to accept defeat and on 8 January 2023 his hardcore supporters ran riot in the capital Brasília, trashing the presidential palace, congress and the supreme court in a bid to overturn the internationally accepted result.
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