Brazil's Bolsonaro takes stand, rejects coup charges
The plot only failed, the charge sheet says, for a lack of military backing.
Bolsonaro, a former army captain who governed Brazil from 2019 to 2022, was the sixth of eight accused to take the stand for in-person questioning that started on Monday.
"That's not the case, Your Honor," he replied when asked by Judge Alexandre de Moraes -- an arch political foe -- about "the truthfulness" of the accusations against him.
Bolsonaro and his co-accused risk prison sentences of up to 40 years.
On Monday, his former right-hand man Mauro Cid -- a co-defendant who has turned state's witness -- told the court Bolsonaro had "received and read" a draft decree for the declaration of a state of emergency.
He then "edited" the document, which would have paved the way for measures to "redo the election" and also envisaged the imprisonment of top personalities including Moraes, said Cid.
Cid also testified he had received cash in a wine crate from Bolsonaro's former running mate and defense minister Walter Braga Netto.
The money, say investigators, was to be used to finance an operation by special troops to kill Lula, his vice president Geraldo Alckmin and Moraes.
Apart from Cid, the other co-defendants are four ex-ministers and the former heads of Brazil's navy and intelligence agency.
Most who have taken the stand so far have rejected the bulk of the accusations in the charge sheet.
Two former army commanders have claimed Bolsonaro hosted a meeting where the declaration of a state of emergency was discussed as a means of overturning Lula's election victory.
'My conscience is clear'
Bolsonaro, who is still hoping to make a comeback in 2026 presidential elections despite being barred from running in a separate court ruling, denies all charges.
"They have nothing to convict me, my conscience is clear," the former leader told reporters Monday.
Almir Garnier, who was Navy commander under Bolsonaro, denied the former president had discussed the declaration of a state of emergency with military officials.
"I did not see any document; no document was presented," Garnier testified.
He also denied offering Bolsonaro Navy troops.
Although he has the right to remain silent, the former president previously told reporters he plans to respond "without any problem" to questions from the court.
"It's an excellent idea to speak openly about the coup. I will be very happy to have the opportunity to clarify what happened," he said last week. "It's the moment of truth."
The Supreme Court headquarters in Brasilia was one of the targets of rioting supporters known as "Bolsonaristas" -- who raided government buildings in January 2023 as they urged the military to oust Lula.
Bolsonaro was abroad at the time of this last-gasp effort to keep him in power after the alleged coup planning fizzled.
The trial is the first for an attempted coup under a democratic regime in Brazil.
© 2025 AFP
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
France 24
37 minutes ago
- France 24
US Supreme Court to weigh transgender athlete bans
The court said it would hear a case next term challenging state laws in Idaho and West Virginia banning transgender athletes from female competition. More than two dozen US states have passed laws in recent years barring athletes who were assigned male at birth from taking part in girls or women's sports. The conservative-dominated Supreme Court's decision to hear the case comes two weeks after it upheld a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming medical treatment for transgender minors. The Supreme Court has also recently backed a move by President Donald Trump, who campaigned on the issue of transgender athletes, to have transgender troops dismissed from the military. Trump issued an executive order in February aimed at banning transgender athletes from girls and women's sports. "From now on women's sports will be only for women," Trump said. "With this executive order the war on women's sports is over." The executive order allows federal agencies to deny funding to schools that allow transgender athletes to compete on girls or women's teams. In a high-profile case, the University of Pennsylvania agreed this week to ban transgender athletes from its women's sports teams, settling a federal civil rights case stemming from the furor around swimmer Lia Thomas. The Department of Education said that UPenn had entered into a resolution agreement vowing to comply with Title IX, the federal law which prohibits sex-based discrimination in any educational program. It follows an investigation by the department's Office for Civil Rights which found the university had violated Title IX by allowing transgender swimmer Thomas to compete in women's competitions. Thomas became a lightning rod around the debate over transgender athletes in women's sport after competing in female collegiate competitions in 2022. She had earlier swam on UPenn's men's team while undergoing hormone replacement therapy. Critics and some fellow swimmers said she should not have been allowed to compete against women due to an unfair physiological advantage. The Idaho case accepted by the Supreme Court stems from the Republican-led state's "Fairness in Women's Sports Act." It was challenged by an athlete at an Idaho university and lower courts ruled that it violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution. The West Virginia case was challenged by a middle school student who was not allowed to compete for the girls' track team. An appeals court ruled that the ban was a violation of Title IX. The Supreme Court will hear the case during the term beginning in October and issue a ruling next year.
Euronews
6 hours ago
- Euronews
Deputy commander of Russian Navy killed in Ukrainian strike in Kursk
The deputy commander of the Russian Navy, Major General Mikhail Gudkov, has been killed in a Ukrainian strike in Russia's Kursk region, officials reported on Thursday. According to the governor of Russia's Primorsky Krai, Gudkov, a high-ranking Russian naval officer, was killed in the district of Korenevo, which borders Ukraine. Russian and Ukrainian military Telegram channels had earlier reported that Gudkov had been killed along with 10 other servicemen in a Ukrainian attack on a command post. This is a developing story and our journalists are working on further updates.
France 24
19 hours ago
- France 24
Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna
The Colombian navy on Wednesday announced its first seizure of an unmanned narco-submarine equipped with a Starlink antenna off its Caribbean coast. The vessel was not carrying drugs, but the Colombian navy and Western security sources based in the region told AFP they believed it was a trial run of an unmanned vessel by a cocaine trafficking cartel. "It was being tested and was empty," a naval spokeswoman confirmed to AFP. Asked if it was operated by Starlink, the spokeswoman confirmed that the vessel "had that technology" but said the navy "was still studying how exactly it operated." The discovery announced by Navy commander Admiral Juan Ricardo Rozo at a press conference is one of the first reported finds in South American waters of a drone narco submarine. It comes as cartels step up their use of hard-to-detect submarines, usually with a crew aboard, to smuggle cocaine across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Manned semi-submersibles have been used for decades to ferry cocaine north from Colombia's Pacific coast to Central America or Mexico. But in recent years, they have been sailing much further afield. In November last year, five tons of Colombian cocaine were found on a semi-submersible seized en route to Australia.
