Brasilia, Sep 13 (EFE).- Judge Alexandre de Moares opened on Wednesday the trial against the first four accused of the January 8 coup at the Brazilian Supreme Court, an action he described as a “coup attack” carried out with “irrational hatred” against democracy.
De Moraes took the floor to expose the alleged responsibility of the first accused for the violent assault on the headquarters of the Presidency, the Parliament, and the Supreme Court itself, whose purpose was to provoke a coup d’état against the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Aécio Lúcio Costa Pereira is the first of the four defendants that the Supreme Court has put in the stand since Wednesday, and also the first of the 1,390 people who will answer criminally for the events of January 8, attributed to a far-right coup movement.
The defendants will answer for the accusations of illicit association, violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, coup d’état, qualified damages and destruction of public patrimony.
It is confirmed that all the defendants are followers of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who did not recognize the result of the October 2022 elections won by Lula.
According to De Moraes, the demonstrators were part of a “violent mob,” which, through this “coup” action, had “the clear intention of interrupting the democratic process” and overthrowing a constitutional and legitimately constituted government.
According to the investigation, the objective of the demonstrations was to sow chaos and attempt to provoke an intervention by the Armed Forces to overthrow Lula, who had assumed power a week earlier.
The responsibility of each of the 1,390 defendants will have to be determined individually and in an equal number of trials since Brazilian law does not contemplate “collective responsibilities.”
After the presentation of the case by Judge De Moraes, the Attorney General’s Office will intervene as the prosecuting party, and then it will be the defense’s turn.
Subsequently, each of the eleven members of the Supreme Court will speak. The Court is expected to rule on Wednesday, although it has already reserved a hearing for Thursday in case these first four trials are extended. EFE
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