Lula da Silva tells Trump: Bolsonaro trial was not a witch hunt

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said that the trial of his far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, was "not a witch hunt," contradicting US President Donald Trump's claim.

In his first reaction to the 27-year prison sentence handed to his bitter opponent for plotting a coup, Lula wrote in an article in the American newspaper The New York Times and said he was "proud of the Supreme Court of Brazil for this historic decision," while Trump this week called Bolsonaro's sentence "very surprising."

The Brazilian president has been in the midst of a diplomatic crisis with the US since the trial of Bolsonaro, a right-wing leader and close ally of Trump, who punished Brazil by imposing 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods, and several judges of the Brazilian Supreme Court are under US sanctions for the trial of Bolsonaro.

Seventy-year-old former President Bolsonaro was convicted this Sunday of preparing a coup d'état to prevent Lula from assuming the presidency, even though he defeated him in the 2022 election.

"Months of investigation have revealed plans to assassinate me, the vice president and Supreme Court judges," Lula wrote.

Trump wrote that Bolsonaro's trial "really reminded him of what they tried" to do to him - when he had problems with the judiciary because he called on his supporters to storm Capitol Hill in Washington on January 6, 2021, and prevent the official declaration of the winner of the presidential election that he lost, and the inauguration of the winner of the election, Joseph Biden.

Brazilian courts found the former president responsible for inciting riots against the seat of government in Brasilia on January 8, 2023, and Bolsonaro claimed to be a "victim of persecution" and announced from house arrest in his home in Brasilia that he would appeal to international courts.