Brasilia, Nov 25 (EFE).- Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro on Monday denied the coup-plot allegations against him and tried to cast suspicion on the judiciary.
Bolsonaro was indicted by federal police last Thursday as part of an investigation into an alleged coup plot to hold onto power after his 2022 election defeat to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
“It’s like Temer said today. Temer said something obvious: a coup d’état must have the participation of all the Armed Forces, otherwise it is not a coup d’état,” Bolsonaro said while speaking about the allegations for the first time upon landing in the capital after spending a few days on holiday in the northeast of the country.
“No one carries out a coup d’état on a Sunday, in Brasília, with people who were there with Bibles under their arms and the Brazilian flag in their hands,” he added.
He said he has “never discussed a coup with anyone.”
“Now, I have studied all the possible measures within the four lines, within the Constitution,” he said without giving further details.
“The word coup has never been in my dictionary,” he added, before claiming the case was “political persecution” by the justice system and admitting he “could be arrested now, when I leave here” (the airport).
In addition to Bolsonaro, the police indicted another 36 other people, including several high-ranking military officers and former ministers of his government, for “violent abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law, coup d’état and illicit association.”
The combined sentences for these crimes are around 30 years in prison.
The retired army captain rejected the thesis that the thousands of his followers who invaded the headquarters of the three powers of the nation on Jan. 8, 2023 sought to incite a military coup to overthrow Lula and return Bolsonaro to power.
He claimed the case is “tainted” and is being processed under secrecy so that it can be modified at the supposed whim of the Supreme Court, and tried to sow suspicions about the Superior Electoral Tribunal in the 2022 elections, which he accused of bias in favor of Lula.
Bolsonaro was already banned from office last year until 2030 for delegitimizing democratic institutions and sowing unfounded suspicions about the electoral process. EFE
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