https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/11/brazil-supreme-court-bolsonaro-guilty-coupTom Phillips in Brasília
Thu 11 Sep 2025 14.57 EDT
A majority of Brazil’s supreme court judges have voted to convict the country’s former president Jair Bolsonaro of plotting a military coup, leaving the far-right populist facing a decades-long sentence for leading the criminal conspiracy.
Justice Cármen Lúcia Antunes Rocha ruled on Thursday that Bolsonaro – a former paratrooper who was elected president in 2018 – was guilty of seeking to forcibly cling to power after losing the 2022 election, meaning three of the five judges involved in the trial had found Brazil’s former leader guilty.
Delivering her decisive vote, Rocha denounced what she called an attempt to “sow the malignant seed of anti-democracy” in Brazil – but celebrated how the country’s institutions had survived and were fighting back.
