Brazilian Prosecutor Calls for Former President Bolsonaro to Be Convicted for Alleged Coup Attempt

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro speaks during a rally on Paulista Avenue in São Paulo, Brazil, on June 29, 2025. Miguel Schincariol/AFP via Getty Images

Brazilian Attorney General Paulo Gonet requested on July 14 the conviction of former President Jair Bolsonaro and several of his former associates for an alleged coup attempt following Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s victory in 2022.

The attorney general’s office submitted to the Supreme Federal Court a document containing the accusations filed against Bolsonaro and seven other defendants for allegedly carrying out acts contrary to the democratic rule of law.

In the document, Gonet emphasized that the indictment “was based on a broad set of evidence, including manuscripts, digital files, text exchanges, and spreadsheets that reveal the conspiratorial plot against democratic institutions,” according to a press release from the Attorney General’s Office on July 14.

According to Gonet, testimony and interrogations throughout the trial, which began on March 25, indicated that the defendants allegedly participated in a “criminal organization” that sought to obstruct the functioning of the powers of the Republic and overthrow a legitimately elected government, as well as defacing government buildings.

The other seven defendants are Alexandre Ramagem, former director of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency; Almir Garnier, former Navy commander; Anderson Torres, former Minister of Justice; Augusto Heleno, former Minister of the Institutional Security Cabinet; Mauro Cid, former presidential aide-de-camp; Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, former Minister of Defense; and Walter Braga Netto, former Minister of the Civil House.

The lawsuit seeks to charge the defendants with the crimes of armed criminal organization, attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, coup d'état, aggravated damage, and damage to classified property.

Former President Jair Bolsonaro denied the accusations, saying that the facts prove otherwise and calling the lawsuit a persecution.

“All the accusations are false. I have never attacked democracy or the Constitution. ... We are experiencing a true WITCH HUNT, a blatant persecution against me and the millions of Brazilians whom I represent and to whom I give voice,” Bolsonaro wrote in a post on his X account on July 14. “All based on a false and inconsistency-filled complaint, obtained by the whistleblower through pressure.”

Flávio Bolsonaro, a Brazilian senator and son of the former president, also spoke out following the request from prosecutor Gonet.

“Democracy has been hijacked in Brazil, and we will fight to rescue it! This goes far beyond Bolsonaro and the right,” he wrote in a July 15 post on X.

For its part, the U.S. Office of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy said in a post on X that President Donald Trump sent a letter to Brazil’s Supreme Court and Lula da Silva’s government warning that he will impose “long-overdue consequences” for their attacks on Bolsonaro, freedom of expression, and U.S. trade.

“Such attacks are a disgrace and fall well below the dignity of Brazil’s democratic traditions,” the July 14 post reads.

On July 9, Trump posted on Truth Social a copy of a letter he sent to Lula da Silva, in which he accused the nation of becoming an “international disgrace” due to the ongoing trial of Bolsonaro, a Trump ally. The letter threatened to impose a 50 percent tariff on Brazilian exports to the United States.