13/09/2025

SATURDAY | SEPT 13, 2025

9

Brazil ex-president found guilty of plotting coup

o Trump labels verdict ‘a terrible thing’

BRASILIA: Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced on Thursday to 27 years and three months in prison hours after being convicted of plotting a coup to remain in power after losing the 2022 election, dealing a powerful rebuke to one of the world’s most prominent far-right populist leaders. The conviction ruling by a panel of five justices on Brazil’s Supreme Court, who also agreed on the sentence, made the 70-year-old Bolsonaro the first former president in the country’s history to be convicted for attacking democracy, and drew disapproval from the Trump administration. “This criminal case is almost a meeting between Brazil and its past, its present and its future,” Justice Carmen Lucia said before her vote to convict Bolsonaro, referring to a history checkered with military coups and attempts to overthrow democracy. There was ample evidence that Bolsonaro, who is under house arrest, acted “with the purpose of eroding democracy and institutions”, she said. Four of the five judges voted to convict the former president of five crimes: taking part in an armed criminal organisation; attempting to violently abolish democracy; organising a coup; and damaging government property and protected cultural assets. The conviction of Bolsonaro, a former army captain who never hid his admiration for the military dictatorship that killed hundreds of Brazilians between 1964 and 1985, follows legal condemnations for other far-right leaders this year, including France’s Marine Le Pen and the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte. It may further enrage Bolsonaro’s close ally President Donald Trump, who had called the case a “witch hunt” and in retaliation hit Brazil

A poster held by an activist at Incheon Airport yesterday. – REUTERSPIC Detained Korean workers return home INCHEON: Some 300 South Korean workers returned home yesterday, one week after being detained in a US immigration raid at a battery project site in Georgia. Workers wearing face masks began disembarking a chartered plane at Incheon airport and were greeted with cheers from officials including the presidential chief of staff. Their return capped a week of intense negotiations by Seoul to win their release and bring them home after they were taken into custody in handcuffs and shackles – shocking many in South Korea. Businesses have long struggled with obtaining proper visas for specialist workers needed at project sites for months at a time, which has led to some workers relying on grey areas in US visa enforcement. The two countries are looking at establishing a working group to consider a new type of visa for Koreans, according to South Korea’s foreign minister who visited Washington this week. The workers, also including 10 from China, three from Japan and an Indonesian national, were met by family members and officials at LG Energy Solution and its subcontractors. The battery company is partnering with Hyundai Motor to build the plant in Georgia. The raid horrified South Koreans and has threatened to destabilise ties at a time when the countries are seeking to finalise a trade deal. In one sign of resentment, at the arrival gate, someone unfurled a poster depicting President Donald Trump wearing an outfit with the initials of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement service and carrying a bag full of dollar bills with a machine gun slung across his chest. The caption read: “We’re friends!” – Reuters

Residents in the Rio de Janeiro Santa Teresa neighbourhood celebrating the verdict. – AFPPIC

bolt, but are perceived as more accurate at longer ranges when a single, fatal shot is all that is needed. Utah Department of Public Safety Commissioner Beau Mason said the man left some palm impressions and smudges where investigators were looking to collect DNA. Utah Governor Spencer Cox, appearing at a press briefing with FBI Director Kash Patel and other officials, asked for the public’s help in identifying the slender young man, whose appearance was partially concealed by a dark baseball cap and sunglasses. Trump said he would award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honour. – Reuters that he would run in the Oct 4 party contest. The ruling party decided to hold the leadership election after Ishiba announced last weekend that he would step down after losing two national elections in the past year. The next LDP leader could also become the new prime minister as the ruling party is the largest force in parliament, although it needs to work with other parties to form a majority. Koizumi is seen as one of the top two likely contenders, along with hardline nationalist Sanae Takaichi, 64, who could become Japan’s first woman prime minister. – AFP would not be intimidated by the US. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva also said he does not fear new sanctions from the US in an interview to local TV channel Band hours before Bolsonaro’s conviction was confirmed. The verdict was not unanimous, with Justice Luiz Fux on Wednesday breaking with his peers by acquitting the former president of all charges and questioning the court’s jurisdiction. That single vote could open a path to challenges to the ruling, which could push the trial’s conclusion closer to the October 2026 presidential election. Bolsonaro has repeatedly said he will be a candidate in that election despite being barred from running for office. Bolsonaro’s lawyers said in a statement that the sentencing “was absurdly excessive” and that they would file the appropriate appeals. – Reuters

months later foiled by federal agents. Video played at a press briefing late on Thursday showed a man walking across the roof of the building where the gunfire originated, before climbing down and dropping to the ground and leaving the campus. Across the road, he entered a small wooded area where officials recovered what they described as a high powered, bolt-action rifle they believe was used in the shooting. Bolt-action rifles, unlike self-loading semi automatic rifles often used in mass shootings, are popular with game hunters, target shooters and snipers. They require the manual loading of each cartridge into the chamber with a turn of the minister Junichiro Koizumi, however, stayed tight-lipped about his candidacy, only saying he wants to hear from his home supporters in Yokosuka, near Tokyo, before making his final decision. “I want to make my final decision after hearing from those” backers, he told a press conference yesterday, when asked whether he will seek to lead the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. The comment came as several major media outlets, including the top-selling Yomiuri Shimbun , said he had told those closest to him with tariff hikes, sanctions against the presiding judge and the revocation of visas for most of the high court justices. Asked about the conviction on Thursday, Trump again praised Bolsonaro, calling the verdict “a terrible thing”. “I think it’s very bad for Brazil,” he said. As he watched his father’s conviction from the US, Brazilian Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro told Reuters he expected Trump to consider imposing further sanctions on Brazil and its high court justices. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X the court had “unjustly ruled”, adding: “The United States will respond accordingly to this witch hunt.” Brazil’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling Rubio’s comment a threat that “attacks Brazilian authority and ignores the facts and the compelling evidence in the records.” The ministry said that Brazilian democracy

Koizumi to run for top party post TOKYO: Popular Japanese agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi will run in a ruling party leadership election, reports said yesterday, possibly up against a veteran nationalist in the contest that could also decide the next Japanese leader.

Koizumi, 44, has been dismissed by some as too inexperienced but his good looks and relative youth have made him a media darling, and among the favourites to replace Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who said last week he will resign. The telegenic surfer son of former prime

Hunt for sniper in murder of activist enters third day OREM: The sniper who killed the conservative activist Charlie Kirk was still on the loose yesterday even as investigators flooded the internet with photos and video of a person of interest. Kirk was on campus for one of his student outreach events, featuring his trademark format of taking questions and challenging opponents to debate on the most polarising issues of the day, including gun violence and race. About 3,000 people were in attendance.

President Donald Trump said investigators were making progress in tracking down the gunman who fired a single rifle shot on Wednesday that struck the neck of Kirk, a 31 year-old podcast host who helped galvanise the conservative youth vote and return Trump to the White House. Officials were still calling the man captured on video a person of interest, not a suspect, but placed him at the scene of the crime at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.

The shooting has punctuated the most sustained period of US political violence since the 1970s. Reuters has documented more than 300 cases of politically motivated acts of violence across the ideological spectrum since Antifa supporters attacked the US Capitol on Jan 6, 2021. Trump himself has survived two attempts on his life last year, one that left him with a grazed ear during a campaign event and another two