On Thursday, the Supreme Court of Brazil convicted Jair Bolsonaro, the former president, for attempting a coup to hold onto power after losing elections in October 2022, and sentenced him to prison for 27 years and three months. The trial and the conviction of Bolsonaro and several members of his inner circle—mostly former military officers like him—is the first time a Brazilian president was convicted of a coup attempt.
The trial was accompanied by an aggressive campaign by President Donald Trump against Brazil to help Bolsonaro, a far-right populist and former Army captain, escape justice. The trial and prosecution of Bolsonaro became a test for the independence of Brazilian judiciary, which did not buckle under domestic or international political pressure.
More than 40 years have passed since Brazil’s military dictatorship ended in 1985. The military regime passed an Amnesty Law in 1979, and Brazil has never prosecuted any of the military officials responsible for crimes committed during the regime—kidnapping, torture, and murders. For a country still reckoning with the brutality of its dark past, the trial of several high ranking military officers in a civilian court is a singular achievement.
The trial of Bolsonaro and many others, including his top aides, came about after a two-year investigation by Brazil’s federal police after Bolsonaro lost the Oct. 2022 election and his supporters violently stormed government buildings in Brasilia on Jan. 8, 2023. In February, Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet, charged Bolsonaro and other accused, with leading a criminal organization, plotting a coup d’état, and violent abolition of the democratic rule of law. The alleged plot, according to the prosecutors, included a plan to poison Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who won the election and succeeded Bolsonaro as the President of Brazil, and Alexandre de Moraes, a Brazilian Supreme Court judge.
Donald Trump and the limits of influence
When charges against Bolsonaro were…
