The former leader of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro has been sentenced to 27 years in prison after losing a case in which he is accused of a coup attempt.
Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court handed him a 27-year and 3 months sentence in prison for his role in an attempted coup aimed at preventing the rise to power of current Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The decision to convict Bolsonaro and impose a prison term was made by four Supreme Court justices, while one justice voted in favor of acquitting the politician. By a vote of four to one, Bolsonaro was found guilty.
Bolsonaro and seven former aides were charged of attempted coup, violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, armed criminal organization, and destruction of protected property.
The sentence is divided into five crimes:
Violent abolition of the rule of law: 6 years and 6 months of imprisonment;
Attempted coup d’état: 8 years and 2 months of imprisonment
; Qualified damage: 2 years and 6 months of detention, plus a 75-day fine, each day set at the value of two minimum wages;
Deterioration of listed property: 2 years and 6 months of imprisonment and a 65-day fine;
Base sentence of total imprisonment: 7 years and 7 months.
Furthermore, the former president, considered by the Supreme Court to be the leader of a criminal organization involved in a coup, will have to pay a fine equivalent to 248 minimum wages, a value that currently totals R$376,464. The prison sentence, which could reach 43 years, will initially be served in a closed regime.
The First Chamber considered seven years and seven months for armed criminal organization, six years and six months for violent abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law, eight years and two months for coup d’état, two years and six months for qualified damage and two years and six months for deterioration of listed heritage.
The sentence could have been even longer, but the judges decided to apply a mitigating factor because Bolsonaro was already 70 years old. The former president was also ordered to pay 124 days’ fines for property crimes, with each day’s fine equivalent to two minimum wages (R$1,518).
“The gravity and intensity of the guilt, motives, circumstances and consequences of the crime are largely unfavorable to the defendant Jair Messias Bolsonaro,” said Minister Alexandre de Moraes, the case’s rapporteur, during the vote on the sentencing.
