(This story has been refiled to remove an incorrect image)
By Fernando Cardoso
SAO PAULO, May 9 (Reuters) – Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes prohibited the implementation of a sharp reduction in the 27-year prison sentence of former President Jair Bolsonaro for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election, a court document showed on Saturday.
Two Brazilian political parties and the press association ABI this week separately challenged the bill, which would have potentially freed Bolsonaro in 2028.
Congress last month overturned President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s veto of the bill, but the plaintiffs asked Brazil’s top court to overturn it, saying the bill was unconstitutional.
Approved last year, the bill would cut Bolsonaro’s prison term to just over two years, lawmakers said at the time, and reduce sentences for those convicted over a January 2023 riot, when Bolsonaro supporters invaded and ransacked the presidential palace, Supreme Court and Congress.
Moraes ruled the bill should not be implemented until Brazil’s top court concludes work in two judicial proceedings in which plaintiffs requested nullification of the measure, which they called unconstitutional.
Bolsonaro’s lawyers have yet to formally request that the court consider a reduction of the right-wing leader’s prison term due to the bill. On Friday, they filed a motion for criminal review with the Supreme Court to overturn the sentence.
The former president has been serving his sentence under humanitarian house arrest following an initial 90-day regime authorized on medical grounds.
(Reporting by Fernando Cardoso and Ricardo Brito; Editing by David Gregorio)
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