Brasília (AFP) - Brazil’s Supreme Court began verdict deliberations Tuesday in the trial of former president Jair Bolsonaro, the Donald Trump ally accused of plotting a coup to retain power after he lost the 2022 election.

In opening comments for the multi-day session, presiding Justice Alexandre de Moraes said Bolsonaro aimed to install a “real dictatorship” when he allegedly launched the uprising.

Referring to extraordinary pressure put on Brazil by the US president, as well as domestic tensions, de Moraes said the top court would operate “independent from internal or external threats and coercion.”

Bolsonaro, 70, faces a prison sentence of more than four decades if convicted of conspiring to cling onto power after losing to leftist rival and current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Verdicts in his case and those of seven co-defendants, including several former ministers and generals, are expected by September 12.

The former army officer, who is under house arrest, was not expected to appear in the Brasilia courtroom.

It is the first trial of a former Brazilian president on coup charges and has sparked tensions across Latin America’s biggest country – stoked by Trump’s highly unusual campaign in support of the leader once dubbed “Trump of the Tropics.”

- Democracy test or show trial? -

Five justices are deliberating and a simple majority of three is needed for a guilty verdict.

A guilty verdict could scupper Bolsonaro’s hopes of making a spectacular Trump-style comeback from a criminal conviction to the country’s top job.

The case has deeply divided the country between those in favor, who view it as a test of the vitality of Brazil’s democracy 40 years after the end of a military dictatorship, and those who see it as a political show trial.

Trump has denounced a “witch hunt” and imposed a 50-percent tariff on a variety of exports from Brazil, plunging relations between the two allies into crisis. The US Treasury has also sanctioned de Moraes.

Bolsonaro’s supporters welcome Trump’s attacks.

“Thanks to these measures, they (the accused) see that they are not alone, that there is someone above them who can make a difference,” Carlos Sergio Alcantara, a businessman who took part in a Bolsonaro solidarity rally Sunday, told AFP.

- Storming seat of power -

On January 8, 2023, mobs of Bolsonaro supporters stormed the Supreme Court, presidential palace and parliament, calling for the military to depose Lula, who had just been inaugurated.

Bolsonaro was in the United States at the time but has been accused of instigating the unrest.

The violence bore uncanny similarities to the January 6, 2021 attack by Trump supporters on Congress in Washington in a failed attempt to prevent certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election win. Trump eventually came back to retake the White House in the 2024 election.

Prosecutors accuse Bolsonaro of leading a “criminal organization” that conspired to prevent Lula taking office, saying that his attacks on Brazil’s electronic voting system months before the vote aimed to discredit the election.

They charge that, after his defeat, Bolsonaro planned to declare a state of emergency and call new elections but failed to win the support of the military top brass.

Prosecutors also allege that he knew of a plan to assassinate Lula, his vice president Geraldo Alckmin and Moraes, which was later abandoned.

Bolsonaro denies all the charges and claims he is the victim of political persecution.

- Bid for amnesty -

Moraes was opening proceedings by summarizing the evidence, after which the prosecution and defense were to present closing arguments.

The judges will vote next week to convict or acquit Bolsonaro and his co-accused before considering possible sentences.

If Bolsonaro is convicted on five charges and given the maximum sentence for each crime, he could be imprisoned for 43 years.

But he can appeal the verdict to a full chamber of the Supreme Court.

His allies believe his conviction to be a foregone conclusion and are counting on Congress to pass an amnesty law to save him from prison.