Former Brazilian President Suspected of Attempted Coup

(Patria) - Brazilian police have called for charges to be brought against former President Jair Bolsonaro for planning a "coup d'état" in 2022 in an attempt to prevent current leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office.

"Police investigators concluded that Bolsonaro and 36 other individuals planned the violent overthrow of the democratic state. The Federal Police concluded on Thursday an investigation into the existence of a criminal organization that acted in a coordinated manner in 2022 in an attempt to keep the then-president in power.

The final report was sent to the Supreme Court with a request to indict 37 individuals for the crimes of violent overthrow of the democratic state, coup d'état, and criminal organization," the police statement said.

Now, Brazil's state prosecutor decides whether the charges are sufficiently substantiated to justify filing indictments. If guilt is proven, charges of attempted coup carry sentences of up to 12 years in prison.

The alleged conspiracy was hatched in the final months of Bolsonaro's presidential term from 2019 to 2022.

Lula, a leftist who previously served as president between 2003 and 2010, won the election in October 2022 and succeeded the far-right Bolsonaro, an admirer of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who is also called the Brazilian Trump.

The police statement did not draw a direct link between the alleged conspiracy and the riot that occurred in Brasília on January 8, 2023, when thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed the presidential palace in the capital, the Congress building, and the Supreme Court.

The list of individuals suspected of participating in the conspiracy in the Bolsonaro case also includes the names of three elite soldiers and a police officer who were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly planning the assassination of Lula and a Supreme Court judge, in a separately announced case.

Bolsonaro is the target of several investigations, but the one released on Thursday is the most dramatic for him politically. The former Brazilian president says he is innocent and that he is a "victim of persecution."