Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro is running out of legal options as Supreme Court judges prepare to uphold his 27-year prison sentence for attempting to overturn the 2022 election.
Bolsonaro, 70, was convicted in September for orchestrating a plot to block President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from taking office — a scheme prosecutors said included plans to assassinate Lula and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. The effort collapsed, investigators say, largely because senior military leaders refused to back it.
A panel of Supreme Court justices voted last week to reject Bolsonaro’s appeal, though the ruling will not be considered final until the hearing formally ends at midnight on Friday. A court official, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, said that once the judgment is published, Bolsonaro’s lawyers will have five days to file a new appeal — a move that lead justice Moraes can dismiss swiftly.
“Generally, after publication of the final judgment, the arrest warrant is issued on the same day,” said Thiago Bottino, a law professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation. Moraes will determine where Bolsonaro is taken into custody.
Based on court procedure timelines, the former president could be imprisoned before the end of November. Bolsonaro has been under house arrest since August and may seek to serve his sentence at home due to ongoing health complications from the 2018 stabbing attack.
Deliberate Coup Attempt
The case centres on Bolsonaro’s sustained efforts to undermine Brazil’s voting system and generate claims of fraud to justify a military intervention should Lula win the election. Prosecutors also detailed a plot to assassinate Lula, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and Justice Moraes, which they say had Bolsonaro’s approval.
“We were ready to kill a lot of people,” federal police agent Wladimir Soares, an alleged member of the hit squad, said in an audio recording released by the Supreme Court. “We were only awaiting orders from the president, but he backed down.”
In rejecting the appeal, Moraes reaffirmed that Bolsonaro deliberately sought to overturn the election and helped incite the January 8 attack on federal institutions by supporters demanding a military takeover.
Moraes said the 27-year, three-month sentence reflected Bolsonaro’s “high culpability” as head of state and the severity of the damage caused, noting that his age had already been considered as a mitigating factor.
Three additional Supreme Court justices also voted to reject the appeal, leaving Bolsonaro with few remaining avenues to avoid imprisonment.
