Brazil’s Bolsonaro planned and participated in coup plot, police report alleges

Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro was fully aware of and actively participated in a coup plot to remain in office after his defeat in the 2022 election, according to a federal police report unsealed on Tuesday.

Brazil’s federal police last Thursday formally accused Mr Bolsonaro and 36 other people of attempting a coup. They sent their 884-page report to the Supreme Court, which lifted the seal.

“The evidence collected throughout the investigation shows unequivocally that then-president Jair Messias Bolsonaro planned, acted and was directly and effectively aware of the actions of the criminal organisation aiming to launch a coup d’etat and eliminate the democratic rule of law, which did not take place due to reasons unrelated to his desire,” the document said.

At another point, it says: “Bolsonaro had full awareness and active participation.”

Mr Bolsonaro, who had repeatedly alleged without evidence that the country’s electronic voting system was prone to fraud, called a meeting in December 2022, during which he presented a draft decree to the commanders of the three divisions of the armed forces, according to the police report, signed by four investigators.

The decree would have launched an investigation into suspicions of fraud and crimes related to the October 2022 vote, and suspended the powers of the nation’s electoral court.

The navy’s commander stood ready to comply, but those from the army and air force objected to any plan that prevented Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s inauguration, the report said. Those refusals are why the plan did not go ahead, according to witnesses who spoke to investigators.

Mr Bolsonaro never signed the decree to set the final stage of the alleged plan into action.

Mr Bolsonaro has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing or awareness of any plot to keep him in power or oust his leftist rival and successor.

“No one is going to do a coup with a reserve general and half a dozen other officers. What is being said is absurd. For my part, there has never been any discussion of a coup,” Mr Bolsonaro told journalists in the capital Brasilia on Monday.

“If someone came to discuss a coup with me, I’d say, that’s fine, but the day after, how does the world view us?” he added. “The word ‘coup’ has never been in my dictionary.”

The top court has passed the report on to prosecutor-general Paulo Gonet. He will decide whether to formally charge Mr Bolsonaro.

Rodrigo Rios, a law professor at the PUC university in the city of Curitiba, said Mr Bolsonaro could face up to a minimum of 11 years in prison if convicted on all charges.

“A woman involved in the January 8 attack on the Supreme Court received a 17-year prison sentence,” Mr Rios told the Associated Press, noting that the former president is more likely to receive 15 years or more if convicted. “Bolsonaro’s future looks dark.”

Ahead of the 2022 election, Mr Bolsonaro repeatedly alleged that the election system, which does not use paper ballots, could be tampered with. The top electoral court later ruled that he had abused his power to cast unfounded doubt on the voting system, and ruled him ineligible for office until 2030.

Still, he has maintained that he will stand as a candidate in the 2026 race.

Since Mr Bolsonaro left office, he has been targeted by several investigations, all of which he has chalked up to political persecution.

Federal police have accused him of smuggling diamond jewellery into Brazil without properly declaring them and directing a subordinate to falsify his and others’ Covid-19 vaccination statuses.

Authorities are also investigating whether he incited the riot on January 8 2022 in which his followers ransacked the Supreme Court and presidential palace in Brasilia, seeking to prompt intervention by the army that would oust Mr Lula from power.

Mr Bolsonaro had left for the United States days before Mr Lula’s inauguration on January 1 2023 and stayed there for three months, keeping a low profile. The police report unsealed on Tuesday alleges he was seeking to avoid possible imprisonment related to the coup plot, and also await the uprising that took place a week later.