Brazil’s lower house introduced a bill early Wednesday that could impose significant cuts the verdict of former President Jair Bolsonarowas sentenced to 27 years in prison for attempting a coup in a chaotic session that included an attempted boycott. Now the text must be approved by the Senate, while the judiciary has the final say.
The 70-year-old far-right leader was convicted by the Supreme Court in September of attempting a coup against leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva after he lost 2022 elections.
He was arrested at a police station in Brasília in late November for violating house arrest by damaging the electronic anklet he was wearing.
The bill, introduced unexpectedly This Tuesday is on the agenda of the Chamber of Deputies, significantly reduced Prison time for various crimesincluding that of a coup.
If it is also passed in the Senate, Bolsonaro could reduce his 27-year prison sentence to “approximately two years and four months.”stated the parliamentarian in charge of the project, Paulinho da Força, in a video sent to AFP.
The judiciary would have the final say on the exact punishment calculation.
The implementation of the bill He would also grant conditional release to more than a hundred Bolsonaro supporters. imprisoned for the uprising against the state headquarters in Brasilia on January 8, 2023, a week after Lula’s inauguration.
“It is a Gesture of reconciliation. “A country cannot remain a prisoner of its recent past forever,” said Paulinho da Força in the hall.
The meeting in the Chamber of Deputies with a conservative majority He experienced moments of confusion.
Left-wing lawmaker Glauber Braga was expelled violently condemned by several legislative police officers after denunciation a “coup offensive” in favor of Bolsonaro and occupy the chair of the President of the House of Representatives to boycott the session.
The official live broadcast of the meeting was interrupted, Journalists present in the plenary session were forced to leave the room and there were scenes of pushing and fighting.
Brazil’s journalists’ association “vehemently rejected the incident of violence” against some of its employees in a statement.
Project approval (with 291 yes votes and 148 no votes) was celebrated by the right-wing opposition, the majority in the lower house.
“It is not the amnesty we want, but it is the step we can take,” said opposition MP Sóstenes Cavalcante, pointing out that Bolsonaro had given his “OK” to the project to reduce sentences.
Lula’s party, for its part, described the initiative as “unacceptable”.
“What is happening today is a disgrace, an attack on democracy and another attempt at immunity,” said the leader of the ruling party, MP Lindbergh Farias.
The bill He was detained for several months in Congress, but was revived after the announcement last week of the pre-candidacy for president of Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of the former president.
Lula has expressed his intention to run for a fourth term in the 2026 presidential election.
At the same time, Bolsonaro’s lawyers demanded this from their client this Tuesday can leave prison to undergo surgery “immediately.” because of his deteriorating health and reiterated their demand that he serve his sentence at home for “humanitarian” reasons.
The former president must undergo two urgent operations: an “anesthetic block of the phrenic nerve” to treat recurrent hiccups and surgical procedures to repair them a hernia, according to the lawyers.
Both procedures require a hospital stay of five to seven days and general anesthesia.
The former president is suffering lasting consequences a stab in the stomach which he received during a presidential campaign event in 2018.
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