Supreme Court sentences Bolsonaro to 27 years in prison for coup plot
13 de September de 2025
By Ana Cláudia Leocádio and Jadson Lima – From Cenarium
BRASÍLIA (DF) and MANAUS (AM) – Four justices of the First Panel of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) followed the rapporteur of Criminal Action 2668, Alexandre de Moraes, and sentenced former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) to 27 years and three months in prison. The former president was found guilty, this Thursday, 11, of leading a criminal organization that acted to overturn the result of the 2022 election.
Bolsonaro and seven other aides, including ministers, Armed Forces commanders, military personnel, and a lawmaker, faced charges. Among the crimes imputed by the Attorney General’s Office are: attempted violent abolition of the Democratic State of Law, attempted coup d’état, participation in an armed criminal organization, aggravated damage, and deterioration of protected heritage. The exception is deputy Alexandre Ramagem (PL-RJ), who had his mandate revoked.
In the vote that convicted the former president, justice Alexandre de Moraes pointed to the confirmation of crimes through Bolsonaro’s own words, during interrogation, when he admitted to considering other measures after realizing that no further legal appeals were possible. At that time, the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) had fined the PL, his party, after a 2022 request for review of electronic voting machines.
“Jair Bolsonaro played the role of leader of the criminal organization, using the structure of the Brazilian State to implement the authoritarian project of power,” declared the justice. “Brazil almost returned to a dictatorship that lasted 20 years because a criminal organization, formed by a political group, did not know how to lose an election,” he affirmed.
The magistrate pointed out that the indictment by the Attorney General’s Office reported that the criminal organization began its actions in July 2021 and continued until January 8, 2023, composed of members of the federal government and Armed Forces, with the objective of restricting and preventing the functioning of the constituted Powers.
It is the first time in history that a former president has been convicted for attacking the Democratic State of Law. Along with Bolsonaro, those convicted were Almir Garnier (former Navy commander), Anderson Torres (former Justice minister), Augusto Heleno (former GSI minister), Mauro Cid (former chief aide-de-camp, also a whistleblower), Paulo Sérgio Nogueira (former Defense minister), Walter Braga Netto (former State Chief of Staff), and deputy Alexandre Ramagem (PL-RJ).
“The leader of the criminal group makes it clear, in his own voice, publicly, that he would never accept defeat at the polls, a democratic defeat in the elections, that he would never comply with the popular will,” Moraes emphasized about Bolsonaro’s role.
Dissenting vote
The dissenting vote that surprised defense lawyers and Bolsonaro supporters began to be read at 9:12 a.m. on Wednesday, 10, in a session reserved for the reading of the vote by Luiz Fux, who structured his decision on the premises of the crimes imputed by the Attorney General’s Office to the eight defendants in the case before the First Panel of the STF.
According to Fux, the indictment presented by the Attorney General’s Office failed to prove Bolsonaro’s participation and leadership in an armed criminal organization, nor any link between the former president and the acts described, such as contact with those involved in the January 8, 2023 attacks or knowledge of plans to monitor authorities and assassinate president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, vice president Geraldo Alckmin, and the rapporteur of the case, Alexandre de Moraes.
According to the premises presented by the justice, to configure the crime of a criminal organization, the Attorney General’s Office would have had to prove that its members were part of a stable and permanent structure for the commission of a series of indeterminate crimes. Fux repeatedly emphasized the words of Mauro Cid, in his plea bargain testimony, when he assured that Bolsonaro would not sign any document of institutional rupture nor gave any order for him to act outside the bounds of the law.
“It cannot be admitted that the attempt to abolish the Democratic State of Law can be configured simply by giving speeches or interviews, even if they contain questions about the reliability of the electronic voting system or harsh accusations against members of other branches. The mere defense of changing the voting system cannot be considered a subversive narrative,” he declared.