‘The complaint was not based on conjecture or assumptions,’ says Gonet

1:08:08

BRASÍLIA – The first day of the trial of the coup plot in the First Chamber of the Supreme Federal Court (STF), this Tuesday, 2, was marked by emphatic speeches from Minister Alexandre de Moraes and the Attorney General of the Republic, Paulo Gonet, in defense of punishing attacks on democracy. On the other side, the defenses adopted diverse and little aligned strategies with the objective of freeing the defendants from possible convictions.

The panel began the first of five days of trial in criminal case 2668, which brings together charges against former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and seven members of his top government (2019-2022) for attempted coup d'état and other crimes – the so-called"crucial core." Only one of the defendants, former Defense Minister and General Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, attended the session.

Both the reporting justice, Alexandre de Moraes, and Gonet, who is responsible for the prosecution, emphasized that strengthening Brazilian democracy requires prosecuting those responsible for the attempted coup. For the attorney general, failing to suppress coup attempts benefits authoritarian models, both in Brazil and abroad.

“What is being judged today are acts considered serious, as long as we want to maintain the Democratic Rule of Law,” said Gonet.

As the case's rapporteur, Moraes delivered messages and summarized 19 months of coup-mongering, between July 2021 and January 8, 2023, in less than two hours of reading his report. He stated that the country's pacification—as demanded by Bolsonaro supporters through amnesty in Congress—would only come about through compliance with the Constitution.

Moraes defended punishment for the coup plotters and responded to US President Donald Trump's offensive, which imposed a tariff hike on Brazil, citing a"witch hunt" against Bolsonaro as the basis . The minister rejected pressure to subject the Supreme Federal Court and Brazil to a foreign state and indicated that attempts to coerce the judiciary during the proceedings will be punished. The statement can be read as a message to Bolsonaro and his son, Federal Deputy Eduardo (PL-SP), who are being investigated in another case for attempted interference in the criminal trial.

"In these times, history teaches us that impunity, omission, and cowardice are not options for peace, because the apparently easier path — and only apparently, that of impunity — leaves traumatic scars on society and corrodes democracy, as the recent past in Brazil unfortunately demonstrates," Moraes declared.

For 2 hours and 50 minutes in the morning, Moraes and Gonet worked hard to piece together the coup plot and dispel the idea that the attempted democratic rupture was nothing more than isolated events and “mere speculation.”

Bolsonaro's summoning of military personnel with the intention of presenting a coup plan and trying to convince them to join the movement for democratic rupture, according to the Attorney General, is sufficient to establish the plan's execution. He cited, as proof of this implementation, the meetings to which Bolsonaro summoned the commanders of the three Armed Forces – Marco Antônio Freire Gomes (Army), Carlos de Almeida Baptista Júnior (Air Force), and Almir Garnier (Navy), the latter the only one to become a defendant for joining the coup plot, according to the Attorney General's Office.

"It doesn't take extraordinary intellectual thought to understand that, when the President of the Republic and the Minister of Defense summon the military leadership to present a document formalizing a coup d'état, the criminal process is already underway," Gonet declared.

Cid's denunciation questioned

The afternoon was reserved for oral arguments by lawyers representing four of the eight defendants: Bolsonaro's collaborator and former aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid; the former head of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin) and now federal deputy, Alexandre Ramagem (PL-RJ); and former Justice Minister Anderson Torres, in addition to Garnier.

Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid's plea bargain was one of the main points raised by the defendants' defense during, and even before, oral arguments. Moments before the trial resumed in the afternoon, attorneys Paulo Cunha Bueno and Daniel Tesser, who are part of Bolsonaro's defense, and Demóstenes Torres, Garnier's attorney, harshly criticized Cid's plea bargain in conversation with reporters.

When the time came for his client to defend himself, Torres repeated, this time for the ministers to hear, his arguments against the plea bargain, claiming that the collaborator had omitted and altered information crucial to the investigation.

"The flaws highlighted undermine the full credibility of Mauro Cid's accounts. I ask: is it possible to validate this plea bargain? Or should it be rescinded? Today I saw the Attorney General's maneuvering to try to say that if it were rescinded, the facts would remain valid. For whom? Only if it were for the prosecution," he stated.

. Gonet pointed out that Cid was negligent and contradictory on some points, but argued that the plea bargain should be maintained with fewer benefits than previously agreed with the whistleblower.

Anticipating the barrage he would face from the other defendants' lawyers, Cid's defense divided his oral arguments into two sections, dedicating a considerable portion of the time to arguing for the importance of plea bargaining. Attorney Jair Alves Pereira was chosen to defend the plea bargain.

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He cited, for example, that Cid provided the information that Bolsonaro had gathered the commanders of the Armed Forces to present exceptional measures that could be applied after his defeat in the 2022 elections."This undoubtedly contributed to criminal proceedings. Mauro Cid provided facts," he stated.

Cid's defense also defended, in a complimentary tone regarding the investigation conducted by the Federal Police and Moraes, that, although they disagree with the narrative of the case, there was no coercion of their client.

"We disagree with Gonet's request for conviction. But that doesn't mean I can say he coerced me. Neither did Minister Moraes, nor the police chief. Because then I would be being dishonest. We can't do that. Procedural fairness must be absolute. The legitimate right to question. The right to create arguments and use unreliable evidence is completely different," said Alves Pereira.

Ramagem's lawyer, Paulo Renato Garcia, handled the documents found in the congressman's devices. The issue is central because the Attorney General's Office accuses Ramagem of having guided Bolsonaro in a livestream on July 29th, considered the"formal beginning" of the coup attempt, based on these files.

"Alexandre Ramagem did not act as a guide to the president; he was not an essayist for Jair Messias Bolsonaro," the lawyer said. According to Garcia, the documents were merely a compilation of thoughts and criticisms Bolsonaro had already made against the Supreme Court and the Superior Electoral Court (TSE).

Garcia also argued that the resolution approved in the Chamber — which shields a sitting parliamentarian and protects Ramagem from accusations of damage to public property and deterioration of listed heritage, committed after his inauguration as a deputy — should also cover the defendant's association with the crime of criminal organization, since the PGR alleges that this group was still active on January 8, 2023.

Torres' defense, in turn, questioned the PGR's thesis that the former minister provided legal advice to Bolsonaro to facilitate a coup d'état and argued that the"coup draft" was already circulating on the internet before being attributed to the defendant, reinforcing that there is no direct relationship between the former minister and the drafting of the text.

He also stated that Torres planned the trip to the United States “long before” the January 8 attacks were planned — his absence during the event is seen as evidence of his participation — and that, as Secretary of Public Security for the Federal District, he tried to dismantle the encampment in front of the Army headquarters in Brasília.

The session adjourned before 6 p.m. and is expected to resume this Wednesday, the 3rd, at 9 a.m. The arguments of former Minister of the Institutional Security Cabinet (GSI) and General Augusto Heleno, Bolsonaro, and Nogueira are still pending. If the lawyers' statements are not completed by noon, the trial is expected to resume next Tuesday, September 9th.