Brazil’s supreme court has decided to put former president Jair Bolsonaro on trial over an alleged coup plot.
All five judges accepted the charges against him, related to an effort to cling to power after his election defeat in 2022.
Brazil’s prosecutor general Paulo Gonet charged Mr Bolsonaro and 33 others last month.
The plans allegedly included poisoning his successor, current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and killing a Supreme Court judge.
The former army captain, who was president from January 2019 to December 2022, has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and says he is being persecuted.
Writing on X, he called it a “political trial” and an attempt to stop him standing in the 2026 general election.
Mr Bolsonaro, 70, claimed the process was “conducted in a partial, biased, and openly unfair manner by a completely compromised and suspicious rapporteur, whose objective is to take revenge, arresting me and removing me from the ballot box”.
Coup charges carry a sentence of up to 12 years in prison. Combined with other potential crimes, he could face decades in prison.
The judges said seven of Mr Bolsonaro’s close allies should also stand trial on multiple counts.
These are: Trying to stage a coup, participating in an armed criminal gang, attempted violent abolition of the rule of law, damage characterised by violence, and a serious threat against the state’s assets.
Casting his vote to accept the charges, Justice Flavio Dino said “coups kill… It doesn’t matter if it happens today, the following month, or a few years later”.
The prosecutor general said on Tuesday that those facing charges wanted to keep the ex-president in power “at all costs” and accelerated plans once Mr Bolsonaro lost the election.
Mr Gonet said the coup did not go ahead at the eleventh hour as Mr Bolsonaro failed to gain the support of the army’s commander.
He said: “Frustration overwhelmed the members of the criminal organisation who, however, did not give up on the violent seizure of power, not even after the elected president of the republic was sworn in.”
He was alluding to a riot by the far-right politician’s supporters on 8 January 2023 – a week after President Lula took power – in which the presidential palace, the supreme court, and congress were broken into and damaged.
In court, Justice de Moraes played the other judges a video from that day.
He said: “We had a very violent coup attempt. A savage violence, in total incivility, with the request for military intervention in the coup d’etat.”
The court will also vote on claims against Mr Bolsonaro’s former running mate, ex-justice minister and others.
