Brazil: Far-Right Activist to Serve 17 Years for Coup Attempt

On Thursday, the Brazilian Supreme Court sentenced Aecio Lucio Costa Pereira, a right-wing activist who participated in the coup attempt against President Lula da Silva, to 17 years in prison.

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He is part of a group of 1,390 accused of the riots that took place on January 8, when supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro attacked the headquarters of the three branches in Brasilia.

Costa Pereira's guilt was declared unanimously and proclaimed by the Supreme Court President Rosa Weber. The events occurred eight days after the inauguration of Lula, who clearly defeated Bolsonaro in the October 2022 presidential elections.

However, this far-right politician did not recognize the result of the elections and encouraged his supporters to protest.

The text reads, "Aecio Lucio Costa Pereira, resident of Diadema, Sao Paulo. Sentenced to 17 years in prison, 15 years and six months in closed regime. The terrorist was convicted of 5 crimes: armed criminal association, violent abolition of the state of law, coup d'état, damage qualified as violence, and deterioration of patrimony."

The Rapporteur Judge Alexandre de Moraes accepted the accusations of illicit association, violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, coup d'état, qualified damages, and destruction of public property. He suggested a sentence of 17 years in prison and was supported by judges Edson Fachin, Luiz Fux, Jose Toffoli, Carmen Rocha, Gilmar Mendes, and Rosa Weber.

Judge Cristiano Zanin, Lula's former personal lawyer, asked to reduce the sentence to 15 years, while Judge Luis Roberto Barroso set it at ten years.

The discrepancy was opened by the reviewing judge Kassio Nunes Marques, who dismissed some of the charges, such as the accusation of a coup d'état, which in his opinion could not be applied since Lula's overthrow was not consummated. Judge Andre Mendonca spoke in a similar vein.

Both Nunes Marques and Mendonca have a clearly conservative profile and are the only ones who reached the Supreme Court thanks to Bolsonaro, who proposed them precisely because of their alignment with his political ideas.