Brazil’s Supreme Court has started deliberations on a verdict in the coup-plot trial of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.

The court’s five justices began voting Tuesday and have until the end of the week to reach a judgement on Bolsonaro, who faces charges of plotting a coup to remain in power after he lost the 2022 election to leftist candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro has denied all charges.

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The 70-year-old former army officer faces more than four decades in prison if convicted, while seven co-defendants – including ex-ministers and army generals – face similar sentences. 

Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who heads the panel, was the first to vote.

Speaking in court on Tuesday, he said the crimes in question had already been recognised by the high court in prior rulings, so the subject now under discussion is identifying those responsible.

“There is no doubt … there was an attempt to abolish the democratic rule of law, that there was an attempted coup, and that there was a criminal organisation that caused damage to public property,” Moraes said.

He noted that there was excessive evidence of plans to assassinate Lula, citing a document found at government headquarters.

After Moraes, Justice Flavio Dino is expected to vote, followed by his peers Luiz Fux, Carmen Lucia and Cristiano Zanin, who presides over the panel.

Steep and unprecedented charges

Bolsanaro stands accused of taking part in an armed criminal organisation; attempting to violently abolish democracy; organising a coup d’etat; damaging government property; and damaging protected cultural assets. If found guilty, he could receive 43 years in prison.

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In their formal arguments last month, lawyers for the former president said he is innocent on all five counts.

The trial is the first of a Brazilian former head of state on coup charges.

For many Brazilians, it is a test of democracy 40 years after the end of military dictatorship. For others, it is a political show trial.

On Sunday, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters demonstrated in several cities to denounce the trial as a “disgrace” and to thank US President Donald Trump for his intervention.

A simple majority of three judges is needed for a guilty verdict, but Bolsonaro can still appeal.

Apart from a lengthy prison sentence, a guilty verdict could also scupper Bolsonaro’s hopes of making a Trump-style comeback from a criminal conviction to return to the country’s top job.

Fearing his conviction is imminent, allies are meanwhile pushing Congress to pass an amnesty law to save Bolsonaro from prison.

Sao Paulo’s Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, a Bolsonaro ally and possible candidate in the 2026 presidential elections, told AFP there were “more than enough votes” for the amnesty to pass.

Aides said Bolsonaro plans to follow this week’s deliberations from his residence in Brasilia, where he has been under house arrest since last month.

Lawyers have said he is in ill health due to the ongoing effects of being stabbed in the abdomen at a campaign rally in 2018.

US intervention

Bolsonaro is a close ally of Trump, who was similarly charged with trying to overturn the results of the 2020 United States presidential election, and who has accused Brazil’s government of a “witch hunt” against the former leader.

Justice Moraes has been singled out by the Trump administration in aggressive moves to influence the trial.

The US government imposed financial sanctions on Moraes and a 50 percent tariff on many Brazilian imports.

Moraes, however, has vowed that the court would not bow to “internal or external threats and coercion” and will stand “absolutely inflexible in defending national sovereignty”.