Lawyers representing former President Jair Bolsonaro have told a panel of five justices on Brazil’s Supreme Court that their client was denied a fair hearing on charges he plotted a coup d’etat.
A verdict in the case is expected within days. But on Wednesday, Bolsonaro’s defence team argued that anything other than an acquittal would be a miscarriage of justice.
Bolsonaro’s lawyers also questioned whether the trial had been rushed due to political motives.
“We did not have access to the evidence, and much less had enough time to go through it,” lawyer Celso Vilardi told the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, Vilardi told the court there was “not a single shred of evidence linking” Bolsonaro to the alleged plot to overturn Brazil’s 2022 election.
Overturning an election?
That election saw Bolsonaro, the incumbent, narrowly defeated in a run-off against Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the current president.
A former army captain and far-right leader, Bolsonaro has never conceded his loss, and he and his allies are accused of seeking to foment unrest in order to cling to power.
Prosecutors presented evidence suggesting that Bolsonaro and his supporters planned to declare a “state of siege” that would prompt military action and a new election. One aide allegedly proposed poisoning Lula, his left-wing rival.
Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoing, instead framing the trial as a political hit job.
He faces five charges, including attempting a coup, seeking to end the democratic rule of law and participating in a armed criminal organisation.
Two of the charges pertain to the property damage that occurred on January 8, 2023, when thousands of Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed government buildings in the capital Brasilia to protest his defeat. Some rioters expressed that their aim was to prompt the military to intervene.
In November 2024, federal police outlined the evidence for the case in an 884-page report, and in February, Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet filed the charges.
Since then, the case has become an international spectacle, with world leaders like United States President Donald Trump weighing in.
A high-stakes trial
For some critics, the verdict will be a test of Brazil’s democracy, only four decades old.
For Bolsonaro’s supporters, however, the case is an example of the government’s efforts to censor right-wing voices. Trump, who considers Bolsonaro an ally, has placed 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian exports to the US in protest against the former president’s prosecution.
In Wednesday’s hearing, defence lawyer Paulo Cunha Bueno compared Bolsonaro’s trial to the wrongful conviction of Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus, a 19th-century case in France that drew international condemnation.
“An acquittal is absolutely imperative so that we don’t have our version of the Dreyfus case,” Cunha Bueno told the Supreme Court.
Bolsonaro himself is not Jewish. He has been absent from the courtroom in recent days, reportedly because of severe hiccups and other medical concerns stemming from a stabbing injury he received on the campaign trail in 2018.
In the final days of the trial, however, his lawyers have sought to cast doubt on the circumstances underpinning the case.
They questioned a plea deal reached with one of Bolsonaro’s codefendants, Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, who is now a state witness. And they pointed out that the trial may have been rushed in order to avoid repercussions on the 2026 general election.
Son seeks amnesty for Bolsonaro
Outside the court, Bolsonaro’s son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, has argued that the Supreme Court is biased against his father: One justice, Flavio Dino, was Lula’s former justice minister, and another, Cristiano Zanin, was Lula’s lawyer.
Flavio Bolsonaro has also indicated he is rallying support in Brazil’s Congress to pass an amnesty law that would protect his father and the rioters from the 2023 attack on the capital.
“We will work for a broad, general, and unlimited amnesty,” Flavio Bolsonaro told reporters on Tuesday.
Another one of the ex-president’s sons, Eduardo Bolsonaro, has reportedly made repeat visits to Trump in the White House.
But the Supreme Court has rejected any allegation of bias. At the start of Tuesday’s hearing, Justice Alexandre de Moraes said the court will also not bend to outside pressure, including from Trump.
“National sovereignty cannot, should not, and will never be vilified, negotiated or extorted,” de Moraes said.
Bolsonaro faces up to 43 years in prison if convicted.
