12.9.2025
Former Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro has been sentenced to 27 years’ imprisonment after the country’s Supreme Court convicted him on charges of attempting a coup to stay in power despite losing in the 2022 election.
Bolsonaro dubbed “Trump of the Tropics” for his Donald Trump style gusto is the first ex Brazilian President to be jailed for attempting to overthrow an elected government in that country that has experienced at least 15 coups, and coup attempts since the end of its monarchy in 1889.
It’s a “watershed moment in Brazil’s history,” said Chief Justice Luís Roberto Barroso after the ruling.
The 70-year-old far-right populist has repeatedly denied accusations that he attempted to overthrow the government, decrying the case as political persecution. His backers took to the streets in the capital Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo in recent days to protest the upcoming verdict and the current government, while in other cities, supporters of incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva also took to the streets in counterprotests defending Lula and seeking Bolsonaro’s imprisonment.
The ruling also prompted reaction from the U.S. Speaking to reporters at the White House after the ruling, President Donald Trump, who has called Bolsonaro a friend and his prosecution a “witch hunt,” said the Brazilian Supreme Court’s decision “surprising.”
“I thought he was a good President,” Trump said. “It’s very much like they tried to do with me but they didn’t get away with it at all.”
Trump and his allies faced their own legal battles for alleged election interference after the 2020 election, and while federal charges against Trump were dropped, a Georgia election racketeering conspiracy case against him is technically still pending.
Trump announced a 50% tariff on Brazilian goods in July, and his Administration sanctioned Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the presiding judge in Bolsonaro’s criminal trial, and revoked the U.S. visas of de Moraes, his allies and his immediate family members to ramp up pressure against Brazilian authorities.
Bolsonaro...