Brazil police urge Bolsonaro's indictment for 2022 'coup' plot

Brazilian police on Thursday called for the indictment of ex-president Jair Bolsonaro over a 2022 "coup" plot to prevent current leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office.

A police statement said its investigators concluded that Bolsonaro and 36 others planned the "violent overthrow of the democratic state."

"Federal police concluded on Thursday the investigation into the existence of a criminal organization that acted in a coordinated way in 2002 in an attempt to maintain the then-president in power," the statement said.

"The final report has been sent to the Supreme Court with the request that 37 individuals be indicted for the crimes of the violent overthrow of the democratic state, coup d'etat and criminal organization," it said.

It is up to Brazil's attorney general to decide whether the allegations are substantiated enough to warrant criminal charges being laid. The charge of attempting a coup carries a sentence of up to 12 years in prison.

Bolsonaro vowed to fight the allegation, and accused the Supreme Court judge overseeing the case of overstepping the law.

"The fight begins at the Attorney General's office," Bolsonaro said on his X social media account.

The judge, Alexandre de Moraes, "leads the entire investigation, adjusts statements, arrests without charges, fishes for evidence and has a very creative advisory team. He does everything that the law does not say," Bolsonaro said.

According to police, the alleged plot was hatched in the final months of Bolsonaro's 2019-2022 presidency.

Lula, a left-winger who was previously president between 2003 and 2010, won October 2022 elections to succeed the far-right Bolsonaro.

Police have not so far drawn a direct link between the alleged plot and an insurrection that took place in Brasilia on January 8, 2023, when thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed the capital's presidential palace, the Congress building and the Supreme Court.

Investigations continue into that upheaval, which echoed scenes from the United States two years earlier, when supporters of Donald Trump protesting President Joe Biden's election win attacked the US Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021.

Bolsonaro has expressed admiration for Trump in the past.

The list of alleged co-conspirators in the Bolsonaro case included three elite soldiers and a police officer arrested on Tuesday for allegedly plotting to assassinate Lula and Moraes, in a separately announced case.

"I must be very grateful that I am alive. The attempt to poison me and Alckmin didn't work," said Lula on Thursday at an official ceremony, referring to Vice President Geraldo Alckmin.

"We need to build this country without persecution, incitement to hatred or discord," the president added.

- Trump parallels -

Bolsonaro is the target of several investigations, but the one on Thursday placing him at the center of an alleged coup is the most dramatic.

He says he is innocent and the victim of "persecution."

A former army captain, Bolsonaro has already been declared ineligible to hold public office until 2030 for having made unsubstantiated claims of fraud in Brazil's electronic voting system.

He has been prohibited from leaving the country while a vast probe named "Tempus Veritatis" ("the time of truth" in Latin) continues. The investigation has already swept up several of Bolsonaro's closest aides.

Bolsonaro hopes to overturn the ineligibility ruling and attempt a comeback in 2026 presidential elections.

On X, he has posted parallels between his situation and that of Trump, who won over US voters this month to secure a return to the White House.

The police investigation calling for Bolsonaro's indictment detailed an alleged decree the ex-president was said to have issued in December 2022 ordering high-ranking military officers to arrest Moraes.

Moraes was head of the national electoral tribunal that validated Lula's victory in 2022.

That decree was confirmed by the military officers in police questioning, according to transcripts made public by Moraes, who is now in charge of the case at the Supreme Court.

According to a transcript released in March, a retired Brazilian army general, Marco Antonio Freire Gomes, had spoken to police investigators about the December 2022 meetings with Bolsonaro.

He said a Bolsonaro aide had seen legal opinions the then-president had drawn up supporting his attempt to stay in power.