Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro plotted a coup to overturn the 2022 election along with dozens of ex-ministers and senior aides, federal police have said, in a formal accusation filed with the country's supreme court.
The final police report caps a nearly two-year investigation into Bolsonaro's role in the election-denying movement that culminated in riots by his supporters that swept the capital Brasilia in January 2023, a week after his rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office as president.
Many protesters at the time said they wanted to create chaos to justify a military coup, which they considered imminent.
Earlier this week, police arrested five conspirators suspected of planning to assassinate Lula before he took office.
Investigators found evidence Bolsonaro knew of that alleged plan, according to police sources familiar with the inquiry.
Bolsonaro said on social media that investigators and the supreme court judge overseeing the case had been "creative" and done "everything the law does not say", adding that he would have to look closer at the formal police accusation.
His lawyer told the Reuters news agency he would wait to see the report before commenting.
The formal police accusations against Bolsonaro are a fresh blow to his plan to run for president in 2026.
US president-elect Donald Trump's recent victory had buoyed Bolsonaro allies trying to overturn a court decision that has blocked him from public office for attacking the legitimacy of the 2022 vote.
The supreme court said it expects to send the police report — the full details of which remain confidential — next week to the country's prosecutor general, who will decide whether to press charges against Bolsonaro and 36 others accused of criminal conspiracy to violently overthrow democracy.
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Federal police said they had presented evidence based on search warrants, wiretaps, financial records and plea bargain testimony.
They said conspirators divided their efforts between spreading disinformation about the election, inciting the armed forces to join a coup, and operational support for "coup-mongering actions" along with legal support and intelligence.
Who else is accused?
Among the accused are two of Bolsonaro's former defence ministers, including his 2022 running mate, retired general Walter Braga Netto; his former national security adviser, retired general Augusto Heleno; former navy commander Almir Garnier Santos; and former justice minister Anderson Torres.
The arrests earlier this week included a deputy minister in Bolsonaro's cabinet who had in his possession a document outlining the plan that had been printed at the presidential palace.
A police source said investigators confirmed Bolsonaro was at the presidential palace when the document was printed, and they had found evidence on mobile phones of conversations between aides suggesting the former president was aware of the plot.
Bolsonaro never recognised his October 2022 electoral defeat and he left Brazil days before Lula's inauguration for Florida.
He eventually returned to Brazil and surrendered his passport to police investigating his role in the January 2023 capital riots, when supporters stormed and vandalised the supreme court, Congress and the executive presidential palace.
