Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
Most of the judges are on brazil‘S Supreme Court The panel reviewing former President Jair Bolsonaro’s appeal rejected his request on Friday.
Justice Case reporter Alexandre de Moraes rejected all defense arguments, calling them “impractical” and saying there were no errors in sentencing. Justices Flavio Dino and Cristiano Zanin agreed with de Moraes. Justice Carmen Lucia’s vote is still pending, but she is expected to join the other members of the panel.
The panel has until November 14 to submit their votes and the decision will not be finalized until then. Although unlikely, the justices could change their vote before then.
Bolsonaro was convicted in September of attempting a coup following his 2022 election defeat and sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison. He has been under house arrest since August.
His legal team filed an appeal on October 28, seeking to reduce the sentence. The defense argued that Bolsonaro should not be convicted of organizing a coup and attempting to violently end democracy, claiming that the charges overlap and that the cumulative penalties are unjust.
Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoing. He was convicted of attempting a coup after losing the 2022 race to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, which prosecutors alleged included a plot to kill Lula. He was found guilty of charges including participation in an armed criminal organization and attempting to violently subvert the democratic rule of law.
He also cited Justice Luiz Fux, the sole dissenting vote on the five-member panel that convicted Bolsonaro, who argued that even if Bolsonaro had attempted a coup, he “deliberately disrupted the course of events” and did not follow through.
However, Fox has left the panel and will not participate in the appeal review.
De Moraes said there was enough evidence to prove that Bolsonaro was aware of the coup plot aimed at keeping him in power.
“It also demonstrated that the Appellant acted independently and knowingly to spread misinformation about the electronic voting system and to draft the coup, which was a violent attempt to subvert the practice of coup and the rule of law,” he said.
Bolsonaro will begin serving time only after the appeals are exhausted.
The trial made global headlines. us President donald trump Ordered a 50% tariff on Brazilian imported goods and cited Bolsonaro’s case, which he called a “witch hunt”.
This led to a sharp decline in US–Brazil relations, which experts described as the lowest point in more than 200 years of relations.
Relations have improved. Lula and Trump spoke by phone and then met at the ASEAN summit in Malaysia last month.
,
Follow AP’s Latin America coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america