Brazil’s prosecutor general formally charged former President Jair Bolsonaro on the evening of Feb. 18 for his alleged involvement in plotting a coup to overturn his 2022 election loss in the Latin American country.
“The members of the criminal organization structured a plan at the presidential palace to attack institutions, aiming to bring down the system of the powers and the democratic order, which received the sinister name of ‘Green and Yellow Dagger,’” Gonet wrote in a 272-page indictment. “The plan was conceived and taken to the knowledge of the president, and he agreed to it.”
“The responsibility for acts harmful to the democratic order falls upon a criminal organization led by Jair Messias Bolsonaro, based on an authoritarian project of power,” the charges read.
Others charged include Bolsonaro’s former national security adviser, retired General Augusto Heleno, and former Navy Commander Almir Garnier Santos, Brazil’s top prosecutor’s office said in the legal document.
The charges come months after the Federal Police of Brazil in November 2024 concluded a two-year investigation into Bolsonaro’s alleged connection to the plot. The report claims Bolsonaro was involved in a systematic effort to sow distrust in the country’s electoral system that ultimately culminated in riots by his supporters at the capital in January 2023, a week after his successor was sworn in.
The Feb. 18 charges accuse all 34 defendants of involvement in an armed criminal organization, attempted violent toppling of the democratic rule of law, serious threat against the state’s assets, and deterioration of listed heritage, according to a statement from the prosecutor general’s press office.
Bolsonaro’s lawyer Paulo Cunha Bueno, in a statement on social media platform X, denied any wrongdoing by the former president and said the charges lacked facts.
Brazil’s supreme court will preside over the case and will determine whether to accept the charges.
