Those convicted of the leader of the former president (PL) will be tried in the (Superior Military Court) by former uniformed colleagues and former subaltern. The court will define if they should be considered unworthy for the office and lose patents.
The general was an instructor at (Military Academy of Negras) of two of the four ministers general of the current composition of the STM. Already the former Navy commander was in the admiralty-collected from the highest patent-with all three ministers from the naval force.
The personal relations of the Ministers of the Military Court with the convicts and those implicated in the coup plot must permeate the judgment on their declaration of unworthiness, according to the assessment made to the Sheet three STM members.
These ministers said, under reserve, that part of the convicted military are references in their areas and provided more than 40 years of services to the Armed Forces. The prestige of their careers should be placed at the table when deciding about their futures, they added.
The (Federal Supreme Court) for acting in the central nucleus of the coup plot. Five of them will have to respond in the Superior Military Court to a new case-only Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, who made an award-winning denunciation and received a smaller penalty.
The Military Court will decide on a representation for the declaration of unworthiness and incompatibility for the office. It is an action that seeks the loss of the patent of the military sentenced to more than two years in prison. The convicts in military justice are expelled from the forces, and leave pension to family members.
In this process, the STM ministers will analyze ethical issues related to the attitudes of the Supreme military military. The goal is to define whether they have committed unworthy acts for officers and should have their patents revoked.
“It is up to the Military Court to decide only on the offense of the officer’s permanence at the post, not reevaluating the merits of the conviction already rendered,” the STM said in a statement.
Representations should only advance in the Military Justice in 2026. Before, the Supreme Court needs to complete the process about the coup plot, with the analysis of all the resources of the case.
After that, the Military Public Prosecution Service will analyze the conviction and send different representations about each of the military. The processes will be distributed by raffle, and each rapporteur may give a different progress to the cases.
The military who must respond to the lawsuits are the retired captain Jair Bolsonaro and the general officers of the Augusto Heleno reserve, and Almir Garnier Santos.
Sentenced to 21 years in prison, Heleno is quoted by the STM ministers consulted by Sheet as what should have the least complicated path in court. The general is one of the main references of the Army in the last 20 years, with prominent performance at MINUSTAH (United Nations Mission for Haiti stabilization) and the Military Command of the Amazon.
He graduated from Aman in 1969 in his cavalry weapon and, for almost eight years, was an instructor at the Military Academy. During this period, Heleno instructed the cadets Odilson Sampaio Benzi and Marco Antônio de Farias – currently STM ministers.
General Paulo Sérgio was sentenced to 19 years in prison determined by the Supreme last week. He was the army commander for 13 months from March 31, 2021 to April 1, 2022.
During this period, Paulo Sérgio had in his high command the generals Lourival Carvalho Silva and Guido Amin Naves – of the four ministers who occupy the army chairs.
Similar situation lives the former chief of navy Almir Garnier Santos. He was in the admiral of 2018 until the end of the Bolsonaro government, sitting alongside the other three-slope admirals that are today ministers of STM: Leonardo Puntel, Celso Luiz Nazareth and Claudio Portugal de Viveiros.
The situation is only less favorable to General Braga Netto and former President Jair Bolsonaro. The first to have the heads of the Army and Air Force contrary to the coup and to arrest and murder Minister Alexandre de Moraes.
Bolsonaro also has STM civilians and military personnel.
The evaluation of two members of the Military Court heard by the Sheet is that the judgment in the Supreme Court was more political than legal. On the other hand, there would be no prosecution of the coup plot if the former president had accepted the outcome of the presidential elections shortly after the defeat, to reverse the victory of (PT).
The trial of four-star general officers out of unworthiness for the officelato has been unprecedented in the STM since the country’s redemocratization. The Court, however, dealt with proceedings for the revocation of the post and the patent of convicted military.
Internal survey obtained by Sheet It shows that from 2020 to the first half of 2025, the STM judged 49 justification councils and representations for unworthiness with the office. In 42 cases (85%) the outcome was the loss of the patent – other cases were reform sentence (4) and, more rarely, acquittal (3).
The STM is made up of 15 ministers, ten military and five civilians. The chairs for the members of the Armed Forces are divided into four to the army, three for the Navy and three for the Air Force. The positions are held from the nomination of the President of the Republic and approval of the Senate.
President Lula may appoint two more ministers to the Superior Military Court by the end of the year. Two ministers are retired until December, and the army should appoint the names to the Presidency of the Republic in the coming months.
