Brazil police formally accuse Bolsonaro of alleged coup plot

Ex-Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and some of his closest allies have been formally accused of allegedly plotting a coup, after he lost the 2022 presidential election.

Bolsonaro's vice-presidential candidate Walter Braga Netto and 35 other people have also been indicted by federal police for attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, coup d'état and criminal organisation.

It comes after a nearly two-year-long investigation into whether Bolsonaro incited a failed coup after claiming the election was fraudulent.

In a post on X, Bolsonaro said he would mount a legal "fight" against the claims, and accused investigators of being "creative" and doing "everything that the law does not say".

In a statement, police said their probe "found the existence of a criminal organisation that acted in a coordinated manner, in 2022, in an attempt to keep the then president of the republic in power".

Police have forwarded the report with the indictment of the 37 people to the court.

The country's top prosecutor will now decide whether to press charges.

Among those accused of being part of a criminal conspiracy to stage a coup are Bolsonaro's former spy chief Alexandre Ramagem, as well as former ministers Anderson Torres and Augusto Heleno.

The indictment is a fresh blow for Bolsonaro's hard-right backers, who had hoped to overturn a ban blocking him from office in time to him to run for president in 2026.

Earlier this week, federal police in Brazil arrested five people who are suspected of plotting to kill then president-elect Lula in the days before he took office.

In the last few months, federal police have also formally accused Bolsonaro of tampering with his Covid-19 vaccination cards while in office and of benefiting from an illegal scheme to sell jewellery gifted to his government by Saudi Arabia.

Bolsonaro was banned from running for office for eight years after being accused of undermining Brazilian democracy by falsely claiming that electronic ballots used in the October 2022 poll were vulnerable to hacking and fraud.

The bitterly fought election was won by an extremely narrow margin by left-winger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Mr Bolsonaro never publicly acknowledged his defeat and left Brazil for the US two days before Lula was sworn in as president.

His supporters, who refused to accept the outcome of the election, stormed Brazil's Congress, the presidential palace and the building housing the Supreme Court on 8 January 2023.

Parts of the buildings were ransacked and police arrested 1,500 of the rioters.

In his X post, Bolsonaro added that he would wait to see what was in the indictment.

"I will wait for the lawyer. This, obviously, will go to the attorney general's office. It is at the PGR [Prosecutor General of the Republic] that the fight begins," he added.