{"id":59139,"date":"2025-09-12T08:45:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T08:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/59139\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T08:45:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T08:45:08","slug":"brazils-jair-bolsonaro-jailed-for-27-years-after-court-convicts-him-of-attempting-coup-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/59139\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazil\u2019s Jair Bolsonaro jailed for 27 years after court convicts him of attempting coup \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A panel of Brazilian Supreme Court justices has sentenced former president Jair Bolsonaro<\/a> to 27 years and three months in prison after convicting him of attempting a coup<\/a> to remain in office despite his 2022 electoral defeat.<\/p>\n

Bolsonaro, who has always denied any wrongdoing, can appeal the ruling. He is currently under house arrest in Brasilia.<\/p>\n

Four of the five justices reviewing the case in the panel found the far-right politician guilty on five counts, in a ruling that will deepen political divisions and was expected to prompt a backlash from the US government. It makes Bolsonaro the first former Brazilian<\/a> president to be convicted of attempting a coup.<\/p>\n

While the charges carried a maximum sentence of 43 years in prison, the court took into account the 70-year-old Bolsonaro\u2019s age and ongoing health problems in determining the punishment.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Tom Hennigan: Bolsonaro verdict marks end to Brazil\u2019s leniency with military menOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The case stems from an investigation into the January 8th, 2023 insurrection attempt in Brasilia, where thousands of his supporters stormed federal buildings while urging the military to oust newly elected president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva a week after he took office.<\/p>\n

The US government immediately criticised the ruling and warned it would respond.<\/p>\n

US president Donald Trump<\/a> said he was \u201cvery unhappy\u201d with the conviction. Speaking to reporters as he departed the White House, he said he had always found Bolsonaro to be \u201coutstanding\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro at Partido Liberal headquarters in Brasilia last January. Photograph: Victor Moriyama\/The New York Times<\/p>\n

And later, US secretary of state Marco Rubio <\/a>said on his X account that Mr Trump\u2019s government \u201cwill respond accordingly to this witch hunt\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump\u2019s administration had already applied a 50 per cent tariff on imported Brazilian goods<\/a>, which it said was in reaction to the process against Bolsonaro.<\/p>\n

The conviction of Bolsonaro, a former army captain who never hid his admiration for the military dictatorship that killed hundreds of Brazilians between 1964 and 1985, echoes legal condemnations this year for far-right leaders elsewhere, including France\u2019s Marine Le Pen and the Philippines\u2019 Rodrigo Duterte.<\/p>\n

The sentence does not mean he will immediately go to prison. The court panel now has up to 60 days to publish the ruling.<\/p>\n

Once it does, Bolsonaro\u2019s lawyers have five days to file motions for clarification.<\/p>\n

Rafael Mafei, lawyer and law professor at University of Sao Paulo and ESPM University, said Bolsonaro and his co-conspirators could present a motion for clarification, a quick appeal that usually does not change the decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unlikely, but not impossible, that appeals to the full Supreme Court would change the outcome for any of the defendants,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cUnless the Supreme Court changes the interpretation it has been adopting since 2018. But of course, the defences will try, because they should.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Brazil\u2019s Bolsonaro guilty of coup charges, court majority decides in landmark trialOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\"AlexandreAlexandre de Moraes, Supreme Federal Court judge, left, and Carmen Lucia, Brazil’s Supreme Court chief justice, during the trial of Jair Bolsonaro. Photograph: Arthur Menescal\/Bloomberg <\/p>\n

One of the justices, Carmen Lucia, said she was convinced by the evidence the Attorney General\u2019s Office presented against the former president.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is the instigator, the leader of an organisation that orchestrated every possible move to maintain or seize power,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the former president\u2019s eldest son, said on X that the conviction was a \u201csupreme persecution\u201d and that history would show they were on the right side.<\/p>\n

The trial has been followed by a divided society, with people backing the process against the former president, while others still support him. Some have taken to the streets to back the far-right leader who contends he is being politically persecuted.<\/p>\n

Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is overseeing the case, said on Tuesday that Bolsonaro was the leader of a coup plot and of a criminal organisation, and voted in favour of convicting him.<\/p>\n

Thomas Traumann, a former government minister and political consultant based in Rio de Janeiro, said it is \u201cthe most important day for Brazil\u2019s democracy since the 1988 constitution was approved\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the first time a former president, a former defence minister and a former military commander are punished for trying to stop an elected government from taking office,\u201d Mr Traumann said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe threats of the American government make this decision of the Supreme Court an even braver one. The relations between the two countries will get worse and maybe get better once the Trump administration understands there are limits to the will it wants to impose,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Justice Luis Fux, cast the lone acquittal vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one can be punished for cogitation,\u201d Mr Fux said in a written statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cA coup d\u2019\u00e9tat does not result from isolated acts or individual demonstrations lacking coordination, but rather from the actions of organised groups, equipped with resources and strategic capacity to confront and replace the incumbent power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Fux called the January 8th, 2023 uprising \u2013 when hardcore Bolsonaristas ransacked the supreme court, presidential palace and congress \u2013 a \u201cbarbaric act\u201d that had caused \u201cdamage of an Amazonian-scale\u201d. But the judge, who also controversially argued that the court lacked jurisdiction over the case, claimed there was no proof Bolsonaro was to blame for inciting the riots.<\/p>\n

Bolsonaro\u2019s conviction marks the nadir in his trajectory from the back benches of Congress to forge a powerful conservative coalition that tested the limits of the country\u2019s young democratic institutions.<\/p>\n

His political journey began after a brief career as an army paratrooper, when he became a city lawmaker in Rio de Janeiro in the late 1980s. He went on to be elected as a congressman in Brasilia, where he quickly became known for his defence of authoritarian-era policies in the early years of Brazil\u2019s democracy.<\/p>\n

His reputation as a firebrand was fueled by interviews like one in which he argued that Brazil would only change \u201con the day that we break out in civil war here and do the job that the military regime didn\u2019t do: killing 30,000\u201d. \u2013 Agencies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A panel of Brazilian Supreme Court justices has sentenced former president Jair Bolsonaro to 27 years and three…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[377,9,10,356,13,14,6,33406,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-59139","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-brazil","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-jair-bolsonaro","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories","23":"tag-world","24":"tag-world-news","25":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}