EX-BRAZILIAN president Jair Bolsonaro planned to poison his successor Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva, kill a Supreme Court judge and retain the presidency after his 2022 election defeat through a coup, new charges say.

Brazil’s prosecutor-general Paulo Gonet formally charged Mr Bolsonaro and 33 others on Tuesday with “aiming to bring down… the democratic order” in a plan codenamed Green And Yellow Dagger. Mr Bolsonaro often wears the Brazilian football team’s green and yellow colours.

The plan, including murdering Lula with poison and shooting dead Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, was directly approved by Mr Bolsonaro and his running mate General Braga Netto, a 272-page indictment based on a 884-page investigation by Brazil’s federal police says.

Mr Bolsonaro said he was not worried by the accusations, which he denies. His son Flavio, who sits in the Senate, said the Prosecutor-General’s Office was “serving the nefarious interests of Lula.”

The Supreme Court will consider the indictment and decide if Mr Bolsonaro should stand trial.