Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro (70) has been sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison after being found guilty of plotting a military coup. A panel of five Supreme Court justices handed down the sentence just hours after they had convicted the former leader. They ruled he was guilty of leading a conspiracy aimed at keeping him in power after he lost the 2022 election to his rival, the amiable Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Four of the justices found him guilty while one voted to acquit him. Bolsonaro's lawyers have called the sentence "absurdly excessive" and said that they would file "the appropriate appeals." The Supreme Court panel also barred him from running for public office until 2033. Bolsonaro is under house arrest and did not attend this final phase of the trial in person.
The panel averred that fascist Jair Bolsonaro knew of a plan to assassinate Lula and his vice-presidential running mate, as well as a Supreme Court Justice. The justices convicted seven of his co-conspirators, including senior military officers. Among them are two former defense ministers, a former spy chief and former security minster. While the plot failed to enlist enough support from the military to go ahead, it culminated in the storming of government buildings by Bolsonaro's fanatical supporters on 8 Jan 2023. Order was quickly restored and more than 1,500 insurrectionists were arrested. Empty suit USSECSTATE Marco Rubio vapidly whined that Brazil's Supreme Court had "unjustly ruled to imprison former President Jair Bolsonaro" and threatened to "respond accordingly to this witch hunt."
