🇧🇷Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered ex-president Jair Bolsonaro to stand trial on charges of plotting a coup after failing to win re-election in 2022.
On Wednesday, a five-judge panel of the top court voted unanimously to put Bolsonaro on trial.
The trial will be the first of an ex-leader accused of attempting to take power by force since the start of Brazil’s transition from dictatorship to democracy in 1985.
If convicted, the 70-year-old former army captain, who had nurtured hopes of making a comeback in elections scheduled for next year, risks a jail term of over 40 years.
Bolsonaro, who served a single term from 2019-2022, is accused of leading a “criminal organisation” that conspired to keep him in power regardless of the outcome of the 2022 election.
The investigators say the plotters also planned to have Lula, his vice-president Geraldo Alckmin, and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes assassinated.
Seven other people will be tried alongside Bolsonaro, including several of his former ministers and a former navy commander.
The former president insists he is the victim of a political ploy aimed at barring his return to the presidency.
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