Lula calls Bolsonaro a "coward" and mocks call for "amnesty"

In a harsh message to Bolsonaro, Lula said that his opponent was "cowardly" and didn't have the courage to carry out a coup d'état

Former President Jair Bolsonaro's (Liberal Party) request for amnesty for the coup plotters arrested on January 8 was mocked by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers' Party). On Tuesday night (27 February), in an interview the president dismissed the possibility of the Executive branch taking the initiative for a measure that would benefit the imprisoned Bolsonaro supporters and called his opponent a "coward".

"Are you asking for amnesty? Do you want to erase the nonsense you've done? The nonsense is that he [Bolsonaro] chickened out, thought up the coup, didn't have the courage," Lula told journalist Kennedy Alencar.

The possibility of Lula's government proposing an "amnesty" to Congress was raised by Bolsonaro in an interview. But he admitted that this is a "very difficult" scenario. "I know that Parliament is the body that decides this issue, but if it comes from the Executive, it would be very welcome," he said.

That wasn't enough to convince Lula. The president pointed out that, for the "barbarities he has done", Bolsonaro should submit to the legal process to which every citizen is entitled in a democracy, including the "presumption of innocence" which, he repeated, he did not have during the Lava Jato process, in reference to the operation led by former judge and now senator Sergio Moro.

"First you'll be judged, you've committed a lot of barbarity. You will be judged, appreciated. You'll have your defense lawyer. I just want you to have the presumption of innocence that I didn't have. I want you to be able to say what you did and didn't do. It's your right, a right of democracy. And that's what I guarantee my best friend and my worst enemy: the right to a full defense," said Lula.

President Lula da Silva then went on to say that his opponent "chickened out" and didn't have the courage to carry out a coup d'état.

"Are you asking for amnesty? Do you want to erase the nonsense you've done? The nonsense is that he chickened out, thought up the coup, didn't have the courage. He left for the US in advance, thinking that it [the coup] would happen, that society would all leave terrified and he would come back anointed by the masses. And that's not what happened. What happened is that the institutions took responsibility for democracy and you are now in the process of being investigated," he said.

Finally, Lula also criticized Bolsonaro for the fact that the former president kept quiet during his statement to the Federal Police about an alleged criminal organization that was plotting a coup d'état in 2022.

Although he himself used the artifice in April 2019, at a hearing before the PF in Curitiba, where he was being held, as columnist Guilherme Amado, from Metrópoles, recalled.

"I know that when a guy is a coward, he doesn't talk. When the guy is a coward and goes to give evidence, his lawyer says: 'Don't say anything'. And I know that he went there and kept his mouth shut," said Lula.

"Because he talks nonsense all day long, when he was president it was morning, noon and night. Now in the process, he comes in all thin, not wanting to talk. So that's what's going to happen, he's going to be investigated, he's going to give evidence and one day he'll be tried. If he's innocent, he'll be innocent," he concluded.