Alleged coup case naming Bolsonaro sent to Brazil prosecutor

A Brazilian judge overseeing a case alleging ex-president Jair Bolsonaro was part of a 2022 "coup" plot against his successor on Tuesday sent the police probe's conclusions to the attorney general.

The prosecutor, Paulo Gonet, is now to weigh whether the evidence presented in the 800-page report merits laying charges against Bolsonaro and 36 other people alleged to be co-conspirators.

Police last week called for Bolsonaro and the others to be indicted for planning an "attempted coup" by allegedly seeking to prevent current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva taking office.

Bolsonaro, president between 2019 and 2022, denies the allegations and says he is the victim of "persecution."

"The term 'coup d'etat' has never been part of my lexicon," he told a news conference on Monday.

The 69-year-old former army captain lost October 2022 elections to Lula, a left-winger who was previously president between 2003 and 2010.

According to the federal police investigation, conducted over nearly two years, the alleged plot was hatched in the final months of 2022, before Lula took office on January 1, 2023.

The details of the case are not yet known. The contents of the police report have been kept secret under court instruction, but the Supreme Court judge in charge, Alexandre de Moraes, has now lifted that confidentiality.

It will be made public "soon," the Supreme Court said. The police have urged five charges be brought, including the most serious ones of "attempted coup" and an attempt to mount "the violent overthrow of the democratic state."

Multiple investigations have been launched in Brazil over suspected plots against Lula and his administration.

An insurrection that took place in Brasilia on January 8, 2023, when thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed the capital's presidential palace, the Congress building and the Supreme Court, was the most dramatic example.

Investigations continue into that upheaval, which echoed scenes from the United States two years earlier, when supporters of Donald Trump protesting President Joe Biden's election win attacked the US Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021. AFP