Defense denies Bolsonaro knew of coup plot
Lawyer Celso Vilardi, Brazilian ex-president Jair Bolsonaro’s counsel, said Tuesday (Mar. 25) that his client had no knowledge of, or connection with, any coup plot. Vilardi protested that he was not given access to the full evidence on which the country’s prosecutor-general based his charges.
The attorney began his argument by stating that Bolsonaro was “the most investigated ex-president in the history of this country.” Even so, he added, the charges filed by Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet fail to provide any evidence of Bolsonaro’s connection to the coup plot or to the attacks of January 8, 2023, when government headquarters were raided and destroyed by Bolsonaro supporters.
“The [former] president,” he said, “has nothing to do with the Green and Yellow Dagger [plan]”, referring to the scheme which, according to the Federal Police, envisaged the seizure of power and the assassination of then President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and other authorities—like Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes—after the 2022 election.
He also mentioned that Bolsonaro authorized the start of the government transition, in addition to an early change in command of the Armed Forces, in December 2022, after losing the election that year. “One cannot say that this is compatible with an attempted coup,” the lawyer argued.
“I fear the seriousness of all the events that took place on January 8, but one cannot seek to attribute any liability to the former president, or label him the leader of a criminal organization, if he offered no support for what happened on January 8—on the contrary, he mocked it,” Vilardi declared. He referred to messages published that day, in which Bolsonaro condemned the attacks.
In Vilardi’s view, the charges amount to “conjectures” that fail to present any specific action by Bolsonaro aimed at staging a coup.
Earlier that day, the prosecutor-general reiterated his accusations, saying that Bolsonaro led a plot to stay in power after losing his bid for re-election. Plans for a coup, he argued, began in mid-2021 and did not end until January 8, 2023, with the attack on public buildings.
Access to evidence
Like other attorneys in the case, Vilardi complained that he did not have access to the raw files in the evidence on which the charges were based. According to the lawyer, the case files contain no more than excerpts handpicked by the Federal Police from the material seized, and do not provide, for instance, the full text of the conversations taken from the cell phones that were examined.
Presented to the defense as evidence, he said, are secondary accounts from investigators. “The charges lack the full media,” he argued. “We have everything the charges mention, but this is the prosecution’s cut. With all due respect, the defense has the right to make its own cut,” he stated.
Bolsonaro
Bolsonaro himself watched Vilardi’s argument directly from the First Panel’s courtroom. The former president left the premises on Tuesday morning stating he would not speak until the trial was over.
On Tuesday morning, a few minutes after Bolsonaro’s arrival, the trial session was opened by the chair of the First Panel, Justice Cristiano Zanin. The floor was then given to the rapporteur, Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who proceeded to read the report on the case.
