Brazil makes history by imprisoning Bolsonaro and generals for coup plot
Jair Messias Bolsonaro (PL) and the generals Augusto Heleno and Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, his former ministers, begin serving their sentences this Tuesday (25) for attempting a coup d’état. It is the first time in Brazil’s history that a former president and high-ranking military officers pay for crimes against democracy.
by Priscila Lobregatte
Bolsonaro will remain imprisoned at the Federal Police Superintendence in Brasília, where he has been held since Saturday (22) after attempting to remove his electronic ankle bracelet. He was sentenced to 27 years and 3 months in prison.
The two generals were arrested this Tuesday (25) afternoon by the Federal Police (PF). Augusto Heleno is former minister of the Institutional Security Cabinet (GSI), and Nogueira former minister of Defense. They were taken to the Military Command of the Planalto, in Brasília.
They were sentenced in September, along with Bolsonaro and other conspirators, to 21 and 19 years in prison, respectively. The court concluded that they all committed crimes of armed criminal organization; coup d’état; attempt to abolish the democratic rule of law; damage qualified by violence and serious threat against Union property; and deterioration of protected heritage.
There are still two other high-ranking military officers who may be arrested at any moment: Admiral Almir Garnier, former commander of the Navy—sentenced to 24 years—and Walter Braga Netto, retired general, former minister of Defense, and Bolsonaro’s former running mate in 2022—sentenced to 16 years.
Minister Alexandre de Moraes also ordered the ineligibility of the convicts. It is up to the Military Justice to determine whether they will lose their ranks.
The execution of the sentences occurs after the Supreme Federal Court (STF) decreed the closure of the case (res judicata) regarding the coup attempt, following the expiration of the deadline for appeals by the defenses.
In addition to Bolsonaro and the two military officers, the cases of Deputy Alexandre Ramagem (PL-RJ), former director of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin)—who is considered a fugitive by the court after traveling without authorization to the United States—and Anderson Torres, former Minister of Justice under Bolsonaro’s government, were also closed and they will begin serving their sentences of 16 and 24 years, respectively.
