Brazil’s Supreme Court sentences first of pro-Bolsonaro rioters to 17 years in prison
Brasilia, Sept 14 (EFE). – Brazil’s Supreme Court sentenced on Thursday to 17 years in prison the first of the 1,390 defendants charged in the January 8 uprising, when a mob of supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro stormed the headquarters of the nation’s three branches of government a week after the inauguration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Aécio Pereira, the first defendant to sit in the dock, was found guilty unanimously by the 11 justices on the bench, although there were discrepancies among them over the charges and the sentence.
Pereira, who is 51 years old, was arrested on the day of the riot and cameras showed him wearing a shirt that called for a military coup.
After a trial that began on Wednsday, Pereira was charged with unlawful association, violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, coup d’état, aggravated damages and destruction of public property.
The two Bolsonaro-appointed justices declined to convict him on all five counts and tried to push for lighter sentences.
On January 8, a week after Lula took office for the second time, thousands of extreme right-wing activists invaded the Supreme Court, presidential palace and Congress allegedly trying to restore Bolsonaro to power.
Bolsonaro did not recognize Lula’s victory and tried to sow doubts about the nation’s electronic voting system without any evidence. EFE
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