The News
Brazil’s police have recommended criminal charges for former President Jair Bolsonaro and his aides over their alleged involvement in a suspected coup to overturn the result of the 2022 election, which he narrowly lost but refused to concede.
The country’s federal police urged prosecutors to charge Bolsonaro for the crimes of “violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, coup d’état and criminal organization.”
The police alleged that Bolsonaro had “full knowledge” of a plan to prevent the winner of the election, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from taking office, CNN reported. At the time, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters had stormed the country’s Congress, Supreme Court, and presidential offices in an effort to overturn the result.
Brazil’s prosecutor-general will decide whether to try the former president, who has denied any wrongdoing, or toss the charges.