Brazil’s Supreme Court has sentenced three military officers and a police officer to prison terms ranging from 21 to 24 years for planning the assassination of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2022.
The convicted individuals, Armed Forces lieutenant colonels Rodrigo Bezerra de Azevedo, Rafael Martins de Oliveira, and Hélio Ferreira Lima, along with police officer Wladimir Matos Soares, were found guilty of devising a plot as part of an attempted coup in favour of former president Jair Bolsonaro.
Delivering his ruling on the convictions, judge Alexandre de Moraes said the group had “prepared a plan for neutralising Brazilian public authorities.”
Earlier in the same case, former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who governed Brazil from 2019 to 2022, was sentenced to 27 years in prison by the Supreme Court in September.
