The mobilization of () by January 8, 2023 is in tune with one of the central theses of its defense in the judgment of the (Supreme Court) in which it is state.
Bolsonaro’s lawyers adopt the line of reasoning that the January 8 attacks play a central role to prove the coup contract. In this sense, the weakening of the date of the date with the former president, as well as eventual forgiveness to the acts, could be exploited as a legal argument to try to turn around the tendency of condemnation in the trial, expected to occur in 2025.
The session in what made Bolsonaro defendant advanced how his defense treats January 8 as crucial to trying to innocent him.
The thesis of its advocates is that only January 8 would gather elements to support an idea of attempted coup, since the crimes of violent abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law and coup d’état are linked to the law to the use of violence or serious threat. At the same time, they defend the idea that Bolsonaro would be detached from the episode, which he would have repudiated.
Likewise, the former Mandanitor tries to reach January 8 through amnesty, which could bring a new fact that can reinforce the arguments of his defense against a conviction, experts heard by Sheet.
In recent weeks, before being, Bolsonaro has intensified a mobilization for the advancement of the project in Congress, although he publicly denies his own benefit with the measure. Experts evaluate, however, that the project depending on its final content.
At the March session of the Supreme Court that made the coup plot, lawyer Celso Vilardi said he understood “the severity of everything that happened on January 8”, but.
The former president himself has frequently remembered in public speech that was not in the country on the day of attacks, potentially corroborating the lawn thesis.
He is accused of attempted violent abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law and a coup d’état, damage qualified by violence and serious threat against union assets, deterioration of listed assets and participation in a criminal organization. If convicted, it can take more than 40 years in prison and increase its ineligibility, which currently runs until 2030.
The line of reasoning by which he played a central role in proving the coup attempt would also explain the former president’s commitment to order one.
According to Álvaro Palma de Jorge, professor of FGV Law Rio, an eventual amnesty with opening to benefit him “can reinforce any arguments for the former president’s defense, including by bringing a new fact [que não existia no momento da denúncia]”. The expert points out, however, that the attempt to forgive has.
Agree with the interpretation Gustavo Sampaio, professor of law at UFF (Fluminense Federal University), for whom a forgiveness to the participants of January 8 would strengthen the defense of Jair Bolsonaro.
As for other actions listed in the coup plot, the defense strategy has been to say that they would have no elements to justify the framing in the crimes of violent abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law and coup d’état, both linked or use of violence or serious threat.
That is, the idea of the defense is to argue that there is no beginning of the scam without violent act, as it confirmed Sheet Paulo Amador da Cunha Bueno, one of Bolsonaro’s lawyers.
According to Gustavo Sampaio, the former president’s lawyers strategy of connecting the case materiality to 8 January and, at the same time, trying to unlink Bolsonaro from the episode “It may be the only minimally viable defense line,” as the politician is accused of serious crimes.
“According to PGR, all acts performed by the former president are aligned in one, that is, the intention that the accused would have, according to the prosecutor, to break with the constitutional order,” he says.
From this perspective, not only would 8 January give materiality to the case, but also actions such as the attack on the polls and the scam minutes. “In this sense, the fact that he is distant during January 8, according to the Federal Prosecutor, nothing compromises the former president’s participation, because the acts he would have committed would have occurred before he travels to the US,” says Sampaio.
In the trial that made Bolsonaro defendant, ministers Cristiano Zanin and Flávio Dino said that the accused must not necessarily have been on January 8 if he contributed in some way to the episode to happen.
For Jessica Freitas, criminalist lawyer and doctoral student in Criminal Procedure from UFPR (Federal University of Paraná), the strategy of thinking about the materiality of the case from the attacks “will probably be the key point of Bolsonaro’s defense”.
The tactic would be a opposition to the way the PGR denunciation narrates the practice of crimes, says Freitas, to whom another central discussion will be about whether the acts will be classified as executors or preparatory (generally not punishable).
She states that the defense will probably try to think of the actions discussed in the process as isolated facts that would not constitute a crime, such as the ballot attacks, in line with the fact that such acts were actually the “right to distrust the ballot box.”
