Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro sentenced to over 27 years for plotting coup

Brazil has achieved a landmark ruling against impunity. For the first time ever, a court has convicted a former president and high-ranking military officers for attempting a coup.

Far-right politician Jair Messias Bolsonaro, a 70-year-old retired army captain, was sentenced in Brasília to 27 years and three months in prison for leading a conspiracy to prevent the transfer of power to his rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, after losing the 2022 elections.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court’s first chamber reached the necessary majority to convict Bolsonaro of five crimes, including attempted coup, attempted abolition of the democratic rule of law, and membership in a criminal organization. Several generals were also convicted for their roles in the attempted uprising. Despite intense pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, the trial proceeded.

In what has been Brazil’s most politically significant trial in recent years, Bolsonaro was also convicted of damage to public property and protected assets. Neither he nor the other seven defendants (three generals, an admiral, a lieutenant colonel, and two civilians) attended the session. The former president (2019–2022), under house arrest, followed the proceedings from home with his family in Brasília. His lawyers are expected to request that Bolsonaro be allowed to serve out his sentence under house arrest due to health issues.

The decisive vote came Thursday from Carmen Lúcia Antunes Rocha, the only woman on the high court. The justice concluded that “a group composed of key government figures and led by Jair Bolsonaro carried out a progressive plan to attack democratic institutions with the aim of undermining the peaceful transfer of power and weakening other branches, especially the judiciary.” She noted that Brazil restored democracy 40 years ago and emphasized that “the facts described have not, in essence, been denied” by the defendants.

The powerful and controversial Judge Alexandre de Moraes voted Tuesday to convict Bolsonaro on all charges, stating that the evidence shows the former president recruited, as part of “an authoritarian power project,” trusted men to orchestrate a plan allowing him to remain in power despite his 2022 electoral defeat.

These actions included discrediting the electoral system, threatening the judiciary, claiming nonexistent fraud, planning the assassination of top state officials (including Moraes), drafting a plan to annul the elections, and attempting to recruit military leaders into the plot. Moraes said Thursday that January 8, 2023, “was not a Sunday stroll, a trip to Disneyland, or an act of spontaneous combustion. It was a coup attempt by a criminal organization,” and played a clip from the day when Bolsonaro called the judge a “scoundrel” and vowed to disobey his orders.

On Wednesday, Judge Luiz Fux issued a scathing dissenting opinion, advocating for Bolsonaro’s acquittal on all charges due to lack of evidence and requesting the annulment of the entire process, arguing that the Supreme Court was not the competent tribunal.

The coup attempt peaked on January 8, a week after Lula’s inauguration, when a mob of Bolsonaro supporters seized the heart of power in Brasília, including the Supreme Court, in a scene reminiscent of the U.S. Capitol riot. Bolsonaro was far from Brasília that day, in the U.S., a fact his defense uses to distance him from the violence. More than 600 participants in the uprising have been convicted.

Being barred from running in elections until 2030 has not stopped Bolsonaro from acting as the undisputed leader of the opposition to Lula’s government. Only house arrest and a judicial ban on social media use have limited his public presence in the past month. His conviction will have major repercussions for the 2026 presidential race, as he is likely to influence who the right’s candidate will be against Lula, who is seeking a fourth term.

Concerns over flight risk and violations of previous preventive measures led Moraes to confine Bolsonaro to house arrest, confiscate his passport, and fit him with an electronic bracelet in July, later removing the passport in 2024. Bolsonaro reportedly considered seeking asylum in Argentina.

The crimes attributed to Bolsonaro carry a potential 43-year prison sentence. Judges will deliberate on Friday on the specific penalties, and Moraes will decide where Bolsonaro will serve his sentence: at home, as he prefers due to health and age; in a Brasília police station; in a high-security prison cell; or at a military barracks.

During the trial, the Supreme Court — stormed by Bolsonaro supporters in 2023 — reinforced security to the extent that armed officers flanked the court throughout the deliberations. Live broadcasts from the court have heightened the suspense and spectacle, a style appreciated by Brazilians. This is one of the world’s most transparent courts. Despite the formal rituals of the Supreme Court — “with your honor’s permission” — the public has witnessed technical debates among the judges, pointed exchanges and ironic remarks that elicited laughter. The court also showed clips of the most dramatic moments of the coup attempt.

For U.S. President Trump, Bolsonaro’s trial is nothing more than a crude political persecution, a witch hunt akin to what he claims to have suffered in the U.S. He has used every means to undermine the trial, imposing tariffs on Brazil and sanctioning several judges. Specifically, he froze Moraes’s potential assets in the U.S. and revoked visas for all Supreme Court members except three: the two appointed by Bolsonaro and the one who voted for his acquittal.

It remains uncertain whether this conviction marks an end or a continuation of Bolsonaro’s political career, the first far-right president elected by Brazilians in 2019. Ending up in prison was one of his nightmares. In August 2021, as he began plotting to contest the elections under false fraud claims to illegally stay in power, Bolsonaro declared from the presidential palace: “I will leave here either imprisoned, dead, or victorious. I want to tell the scoundrels that I will never be a prisoner.” In reality, he lost the election — by less than two points — and maneuvered extensively to block the transfer of power.

In these dire times for global democracy, Brazil sends a powerful message with this verdict: justice can punish those who undermine constitutional order and institutions from within. Nevertheless, it could be a temporary victory. Bolsonaro and his loyalists are pushing Congress to approve an amnesty law to free him and others convicted for their role in the coup attempt. Several right-wing figures aspiring to inherit his leadership and run for president have promised him a pardon.

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