Sawt Falasteen - Brazil's Bolsonaro awaits ruling over alleged coup bid

Brazil's Supreme Court on Tuesday heard arguments for and against putting the country's 2019-2022 leader on trial for allegedly masterminding efforts to wrest power from his leftist successor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Lula was sworn in as president on January 1, 2023 after beating Bolsonaro by a razor-thin margin.

Prosecutors accuse Bolsonaro, 70, of spearheading a plot aimed at keeping himself in power "regardless of the outcome of the election."

A five-judge Supreme Court panel is expected to announce its decision on Wednesday.

Bolsonaro was charged in February with crimes including overseeing a "coup d'etat," the "attempted violent abolition of the democratic state of law" and "armed criminal organization."

The ex-army captain risks a sentence of over 40 years if convicted.

He insists he is the victim of a political plot aimed at excluding him from making a comeback in 2026 elections.

"This is the largest political-judicial persecution in the history of Brazil," he said in a statement to the court Tuesday.

"The referee has blown the whistle before the match even began," he added later on social media platform X.

The investigation yielded a dossier of nearly 900 pages.

Dubbed the "Trump of the Tropics" after his political idol Donald Trump, Bolsonaro has been the target of multiple investigations since his turbulent years as president of Latin America's biggest economy.

Prosecutors say he backed a plot to seek a "correction" of the 2022 election outcome, as well as plans to assassinate Lula, his deputy Geraldo Alckmin, and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes -- a Bolsonaro arch-foe and one of the judges in the current case.

They say the alleged plot did not come to fruition due to a lack of support from the army high command.

- 'They will kill me' -

Investigations have also linked Bolsonaro to the disturbances of January 8, 2023 in Brasilia, where thousands of his backers stormed the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court demanding the military oust Lula a week after his inauguration.

Bolsonaro was in the United States at the time, and denies any involvement.

He has been disqualified from holding public office until 2030 for having sought to cast doubt on Brazil's electronic voting system, but is hopeful the ban will be overturned in time for the 2026 election.

Throughout the investigation he has compared his fate to that of Trump, who returned to the White House this year despite his own legal troubles, and after a similar storming of the US Capitol by his supporters in January 2021.

In an interview with the Financial Times published Tuesday, Bolsonaro claimed Brazil "needs support from abroad" as it had become "a real dictatorship."

The Supreme Court is considering whether there is enough evidence to try him and seven alleged co-conspirators, including former ministers and a navy commander, accused of being the "core" coup plotters.

There are 34 accused in the case in total.

C.Hamad--SF-PST