Brazil: Bolsonaro Sentenced to 27 Years for Attempted Coup
after he lost the 2022 election to Lula da Silva
The Supreme Court convicted Bolsonaro for conspiring against the democratic order after his 2022 electoral defeat.
HAVANA TIMES – Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced on Thursday, September 11, 2025, by the Supreme Court to 27 years and three months in prison for conspiring against the democratic order after his defeat in the 2022 elections to the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The court had planned to hand down the sentences in a closed session scheduled for Friday, September 12th. However, they immediately moved to the sentencing phase once the hearing concluded Thursday, in which, by four votes to one, it declared Bolsonaro and seven other defendants guilty, including former ministers and former military chiefs.
In Bolsonaro’s case, the presiding judge considered the aggravating factor that the prosecution had identified him as the “leader” of a “criminal organization” that conspired to prevent the current president from taking office after winning the October 2022 elections.
The Eight Convicted
Bolsonaro and the other seven defendants were found guilty of crimes against democracy, such as attempting to abolish the democratic rule of law, coup d’état, criminal organization, damage to protected property, and aggravated damage.
According to the charges brought by the Attorney General’s Office and accepted by four of the five judges, the conspiracy began in June 2021, just over a year before the elections, when Lula was starting to rise in the polls.
The plot unfolded in several stages, beginning with an aggressive campaign of discredit against the country’s institutions and electoral system, directed by Bolsonaro himself, according to the prosecution.
The conspiracy escalated from words to actions after Lula won the October 2022 elections, with intense protests, attacks thwarted by the police, and encampments outside military barracks where thousands of Bolsonaro supporters demanded that the Army block Lula’s inauguration.
The progressive leader ultimately took office on January 1, 2023, and a week later, thousands of far-right activists left one of those camps in Brasília to violently storm the offices of the Presidency, Parliament, and the Supreme Court itself.
According to the prosecution, that action was the culmination of a coup plot that led to the convictions and that, according to the charges, was “led” and personally directed by Bolsonaro, with the goal of “clinging to power” and installing “a dictatorship” in Brazil.