


Brazilian authorities on Tuesday charged Jair Bolsonaro, the country’s former president, for his role in allegedly plotting a coup to overturn his loss in the country’s 2022 presidential elections—which included a purported plan to poison his rival and successor President Lula da Silva.
In Brasilia, Brazil, on February 18, 2025, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro speaks to the ... [+]
Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet named Bolsonaro and 33 other people in a 272-page indictment, which alleged the former president and his allies had drawn up a plan called “Green and Yellow Dagger” to “bring down the system of the powers and the democratic order.”
Gonet’s office described the alleged coup plotters as a criminal organization and said the group was led by Bolsonaro, his vice presidential candidate and others including civilians and military personnel.
According to the indictment, the alleged plot included a plan to kill Lula, the winner of the 2022 election and Brazil’s current president, by poisoning him and shooting Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes—who is overseeing the case against Bolsonaro.
The prosecutors say the coup plot began in 2021, “with systematic attacks on the electronic voting system” and verbalizing unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the electronic ballots “to prepare the international community for the disrespect of the popular will in the presidential elections.”
Bolsonaro is also accused of mobilizing security forces during the second round of the elections to prevent people from voting for Lula.
The prosecutors said the mob attack on the federal government buildings in Brasilia on Jan 8, 2023, after Lula’s inauguration, was the “organization’s” final attempt to wrest power by encouraging the mobilization of a “group of people in front of the Army Headquarters in Brasilia, calling for military intervention in politics.”
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Bolsonaro’s son Flávio Bolsonaro, who serves in the Brazilian senate, dismissed the charges in a post on X, saying there was “absolutely NO PROOF” of a coup attempt. He then claimed the prosecutor-general’s investigation was, “fulfilling its unconstitutional and immoral mission to serve the liver of Alexandre de Moraes and the nefarious interests of Lula, who is in his last months as president.”