Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced yesterday that he would veto a bill passed by Congress that could reduce former President Jair Bolsonaro’s 27-year prison sentence for attempting a coup. “If it reaches my table, I will veto it,” Lula said at a news conference in Brasilia, a day after the Senate gave the green light to the bill.
However, the left-wing president’s veto could later be overturned by Congress with a conservative majority.
Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison by the Supreme Court in September for trying to prevent Lula from taking power in 2022. With the new regulation, his actual prison sentence, which is currently calculated by the judiciary until 2033, could be just over two years. The project was surprisingly passed by both chambers of Congress within a week, just before the Christmas recess.
The initiative benefits the greatest leader of the Brazilian right and far right, 70 years old, detained in federal police facilities in Brasilia since the end of November.
But it can also grant a conditional release to more than a hundred Bolsonaro supporters who were imprisoned because of the January 8, 2023 riots in Brasilia, a week after Lula’s inauguration.
About The Author
