The Supreme Court of Brazil today sentenced to 17 years in prison one of those arrested for the riots caused by supporters of the far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro in the capital Brasilia last January.

With eight votes in favor against three against, “Aesio Lucio Costa Pereira is sentenced to 17 years in prison,” announced the president of the Supreme Court, Rosa Weber. January 8 “wasn’t a Sunday stroll. It was the Sunday of destruction, the day of dishonor,” he underlined before announcing the verdict.

Other judges said the rioters wanted to “put Brasilia under siege” and “persuade the army to participate in a coup”. Riots in Brasilia were reminiscent of the attack by supporters of Donald Trump on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The 51-year-old former civil servant from Sao Paulo was among the Bolsonaros who flooded the center of the Brazilian capital and launched attacks on public buildings – including the Presidential Palace, Congress and the Supreme Court – a week after President Luis Inacio Lula was sworn in. da Silva.

In a video shown during the hearing, Aesio Lucio Costa Pereira can be seen inside a Senate chamber celebrating the invasion, wearing a T-shirt with the message “military intervention”.

He was found guilty of damage to public property, participation in a coup attempt and association with a criminal organization.

The trials of three other defendants, aged 24 to 52, will follow in the near future. A total of 232 people arrested are facing multi-year prison terms for their involvement in the January 8 incidents in Brasilia.