Bolsonaro, a Trump ally, denied any wrongdoing after being accused of numerous charges outlined in a 272-page filing.
Brazil’s prosecutor-general formally charged former President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday evening for his alleged involvement in plotting a coup to overturn his 2022 election loss in the Latin American country.
Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet charged Bolsonaro and 33 others, including high ranking officials in his administration, in the alleged coup to overthrow the country’s democracy. Gonet alleges the coup included a plan to poison Bolsonaro’s successor and current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and shoot dead Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.
“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.”
“The responsibility for acts harmful to the democratic order falls upon a criminal organization led by Jair Messias Bolsonaro, based on an authoritarian project of power,” the charge said.
Others charged include Bolsonaro’s former national security adviser, retired General Augusto Heleno, and former Navy Commander Almir Garnier Santos, Brazil’s top prosecutors office said in the legal document.
The charges come months after Brazil’s Federal Police in November 2024 concluded a two-year investigation into Bolsonaro’s alleged connection to the plot. The report claims Bolsonaro was involved in a systematic effort to sow distrust in the country’s electoral system that ultimately culminated into riots by his supporters at the capital in January 2023, a week after his successor was sworn in.
Tuesday’s charges accuse all 34 defendants of involvement in an armed criminal organization, attempted violent toppling of the democratic rule of law, serious threat against the state’s assets, and deterioration of listed heritage, according to a statement from the Prosecutor General’s press office.
Bolsonaro’s lawyer Paolo Cunha Bueno, in a statement on X, denied any wrongdoing by the former president and said the charges lacked facts.
“The President has never supported any movement that aimed to deconstruct the Democratic Rule of Law or the institutions that pave the way for it,” Cunha Bueno wrote in the statement that was reposted by the former Brazilian president.
Brazil’s Supreme Court will preside over the case and will determine whether to accept the charges.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
