Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro appeals his 27-year prison sentence

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RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Lawyers for Brazilian former President Jair Bolsonaro filed an appeal to reduce his prison sentence for attempting a coup after his 2022 electoral defeat.

Judges in September convicted Bolsonaro of trying to overthrow democracy and sentenced him to 27 years and three months in jail. He has been under house arrest since August.

In an 85-page document sent to the Supreme Court on Monday and shared with The Associated Press on Tuesday, lawyers said that the conviction and sentence entailed “profound injustices.”

Lawyers argued there were “ambiguities, omissions, contradictions and obscurities” in the court’s decision.

Bolsonaro has denied wrongdoing. He was convicted of attempting a coup after losing the 2022 race to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a plot that prosecutors alleged included plans to kill Lula. He was found guilty on other charges including participating in an armed criminal organization and attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law.

In their appeal, lawyers argued Bolsonaro should not be convicted of both organising a coup and attempting to violently abolish democracy, on the grounds that the two charges overlap and therefore cumulative penalties are unjust.

They also cited Justice Luiz Fux, who was the only dissenting vote on the five justice panel that convicted Bolsonaro, and argued that even if Bolsonaro had attempted a coup, he “deliberately interrupted the course of events” and did not go through with it.

Lawyers filed motions of clarification, which seek to correct a flaw in the reasoning of a decision rather than change it.

João Pedro Padua, a law professor at the Fluminense Federal University, said that this kind of appeal is very unlikely to reduce Bolsonaro's sentence.

To file an appeal that could substantially modify the decision, the Supreme Court usually requires at least two dissenting votes.

There is no limit on how many motions for clarification can be filed, but the Supreme Court may deem successive filings an attempt to delay the final judgment.

Such a strategy is “risky” for Bolsonaro’s lawyers, as they “could give the Supreme Court an excuse to declare the judgment final right away,” Padua said.

Seven other close aides were convicted alongside Bolsonaro, and all of them apart from Mauro Cid, who signed a plea deal, have filed appeals, the Supreme Court said in a statement on Tuesday.

Justices will decide on the appeals between Nov. 7 and Nov. 14, the court added.

Bolsonaro will only start serving time once appeals are exhausted.

The trial made global headlines. U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a 50% tariff on Brazilian imported goods and cited in part Bolsonaro’s case, which he called a “witch hunt.”

That triggered a sharp deterioration in U.S.-Brazil relations, which experts described as the lowest point in their more than 200-year history.

Relations have improved. Lula and Trump spoke on the phone then met last weekend in Malaysia at the ASEAN summit.