Brazilian Attorney General's Office considers all defendants responsible for attempted coup

Brazil's Attorney General said today that the former President and his leadership are responsible for planning a coup d'état and that "everyone converged" to ensure Jair Bolsonaro's permanence in power.

"All the characters are responsible for the events that are linked together," said Paulo Gonet, during the reading of the indictment on the first day of the trial that could lead to Jair Bolsonaro being sentenced to more than 40 years in prison, stressing that "the acts that make up the appalling and dark panorama of the accusation [charge] are phenomena of an attack with criminal relevance against democratic institutions."

According to Paulo Gonet, “everyone converged, within their sphere of action, towards the common objective of ensuring the permanence of the President of the Republic at the time in charge of the State, even if he did not win the elections, and even after having effectively lost the preference of the voters in 2022”.

For the attorney general, both Bolsonaro and the other seven defendants on trial collaborated “at each stage of the coup process, so that the set of criminal events became reality.”

Gonet emphasized that an official order signed by Bolsonaro is not necessary for a coup d'état to be a crime, especially because "it does not require an extraordinary intellectual effort to recognize that, when the President of the Republic and then the Minister of Defense summon the military leadership to present a document formalizing a coup d'état, the criminal process is already underway."

For this reason, Paulo Gonet called for the condemnation of all those involved: “Punishing the failed attempt at a rupture is imperative; it acts as a deterrent against the spirit of coup adventures.”

According to the prosecution, the plan was discussed even before the October 2022 elections, starting with a campaign against the electoral system and took concrete form after Bolsonaro's defeat at the polls to Lula da Silva.

The prosecution claims that, during the investigation, a draft decree was found that annulled the elections and ordered the detention of some judges, including Alexandre De Moraes, currently the rapporteur for the case.

Documents were also found regarding a plan to monitor the movements of Lula da Silva, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, and Alexandre de Moraes.

In the document, the “green and yellow dagger” even suggested the possibility of assassinating them through “poisoning,” he said.

Paulo Gonet also accused Bolsonaro of encouraging camps in front of Army barracks shortly after the presidential elections, which called for military intervention to prevent Lula da Silva from taking office.

Months of disinformation and verbal attacks led to thousands of radicals invading and attacking the headquarters of the three branches of government in Brasília on January 8, 2023, about a week after Lula da Silva took office.

The first session of the trial that could lead to Jair Bolsonaro being imprisoned for more than 40 years for attempted coup d'état was opened without the presence of the former Brazilian President, who decided not to attend and is under house arrest a few kilometers from the court.

The session in Brasília was opened at around 9:00 am by the presiding judge of the First Chamber of the Supreme Federal Court, Cristiano Zanin, marked by strong security measures in the vicinity of the court.

In addition to Jair Bolsonaro, federal deputy Alexandre Ramagem, Admiral Almir Garnier Santos, former Navy commander, former Minister of Justice Anderson Torres, retired general and former head of the Institutional Security Office of the Presidency of the Republic Augusto Heleno, lieutenant colonel and former aide-de-camp to Bolsonaro, Mauro Cid, general and former Defense Minister Paulo Sérgio Nogueira and retired general and former Chief of Staff Walter Braga Neto will be on trial.

The STF collective is formed by judge Alexandre de Moraes (considered the 'number one enemy' of 'Bolsonarism'), by Flávio Dino (former Minister of Justice of the President, Lula da Silva), Luiz Fux (nominated to the STF by then President Dilma Roussef), Cármen Lúcia (nominated to the STF by Lula da Silva) and Cristiano Zanin (former personal lawyer of Lula da Silva).

In this first hearing, only one of the defendants is present: retired general Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, who was Minister of Defense during the Bolsonaro government.