Newsman: Brazil’s prosecutor-general on Tuesday formally charged former President Jair Bolsonaro with attempting a coup to stay in office after his 2022 election defeat, in a plot included a plan to poison current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and shoot dead Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, a foe of Bolsonaro’s, Brazil’s prosecutor-general said.
Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet alleges that Bolsonaro and 33 others participated in a plan to remain in power. The alleged plot, he wrote, included a plan to poison Lula and shoot dead Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, a foe of the former president.
“The members of the criminal organization structured a plan at the presidential palace to attack institutions, aiming to bring down the system of the powers and the democratic order, which received the sinister name of ‘Green and Yellow Dagger,’” Gonet wrote in a 272-page indictment. “The plan was conceived and taken to the knowledge of the president, and he agreed to it.”
In November, Brazil’s Federal Police filed an 884-page report with Gonet detailing the scheme. They allege a systematic effort to sow distrust in the electoral system, drafting a decree to provide legal cover for the plot, pressuring top military brass to go along with the plan and inciting a riot in the capital.
In the indictment, Gonet described the alleged crimes as part of a chain of events articulated with an overarching objective of stopping Bolsonaro from leaving office, “contrary to the result of the popular will at the polls.”
The far-right leader denies wrongdoing. “I have no concerns about the accusations, zero,” Bolsonaro told journalists earlier on Tuesday during a visit to the Senate in Brasilia.
“Have you seen the coup decree, by any chance? You haven’t. Neither have I,” he added.
As well as participating in a coup d’état, the 34 defendants are accused of participating in an armed criminal organization, attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, damage qualified by violence and serious threat against the state’s assets, and deterioration of listed heritage, according to a statement from the Prosecutor General’s press office.
Gonet said the criminal organization he charged “had as leaders the [then] president himself and his running mate, Gen. Braga Netto.”
“Both accepted, stimulated, and performed acts that are described in our criminal legislation as attacking the existence and the Independence of [the branches] of power and of the democratic rule,” Gonet wrote in his report.
The indictments, based on manuscripts, digital files, spreadsheets, and message exchanges, expose a scheme to disrupt democratic order, according to the prosecutor-general’s office.
Bolsonaro is barred from running in the 2026 election after judges with the country’s top electoral court ruled that he abused his power and cast unfounded doubts on the country’s electronic voting system.
