Brazil’s congress approves bill reducing prison sentence of former president Jair Bolsonaro

Brazil’s largely conservative congress has approved a bill reducing the prison sentence of the far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro , who was convicted last year of attempting a coup. The bill had initially been passed by congress in December, but president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva vetoed it in January in a symbolic move marking three years since Bolsonaro supporters ransacked the capital, Brasília. In a session on Thursday, the lower house overturned the veto with 318 votes, well above the 257 required, and the senate followed by 49 votes, with 41 needed. If confirmed by a supreme court justice, Bolsonaro’s sentence would fall from 27 years and three months to 22 years and one month. Another significant change would be the time served in a closed regime, which could drop from what legal experts estimate at between four and six years to between two and four years, meaning the former president could move to an open regime as early as 2028. It marked a second major blow in less than 24 hours for the leftwing president, who will seek re-election in October in what is expected to be a tight race against one of Bolsonaro’s sons, the senator Flávio Bolsonaro , who took part in the vote. On Wednesday night, Lula suffered a historic defeat when he became the first president in more than 130 years to have a nominee to the supreme court rejected by the senate, the lawyer Jorge Messias. …