Court documents show Bolsonaro presented a plan to top military leaders to stay in power after losing the election

(CNN) — Newly released court documents reveal that former President Jair Bolsonaro presented Brazil’s top military leaders with a plan to stay in power after losing the 2022 presidential election.

The country’s Supreme Court released this Friday the testimony of former army commander Marco Antonio Freire Gomes and former air force commander Carlos de Almeida Baptista Júnior to the Brazilian Federal Police.

Bolsonaro presented the plan at a meeting at the Alvorada Palace in Brasília on December 7, 2022, where a former navy commander and former defense minister were present.

The documents show that Gomes and Baptista Jr. both said in their testimony that they refused to carry out Bolsonaro’s coup plan and threatened to arrest him.

Bolsonaro was facing investigation by Brazilian federal police for an alleged coup attempt to keep him in power. In early February, the former president surrendered his passport to authorities as part of the investigation.

The former president denied the allegations. In late February, he led a large demonstration of his followers in São Paulo, which he said was a “defense of the democratic rule of law”.

Last year, Bolsonaro was declared ineligible to hold political office until 2030 by the country’s highest electoral court for abusing his power and abusing public media during the 2022 election campaign.