BOGOTA, Colombia 

One of the five Brazilian Supreme Court judges trying former President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday surprised the court by voting to acquit him, creating a split in the ongoing trial over his alleged coup attempt in 2022.

It came a day after two judges voted to convict the former leader.

With the vote, the count now stands at two judges for conviction (Alexandre de Moraes and Flavio Dino) and one for acquittal (Luiz Fux). Two judges remain to cast their votes. A simple majority of three is sufficient for a conviction.

The trial seeks to determine whether Bolsonaro orchestrated a plot to illegally cling to power after his election defeat in 2022 to current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Although Judge Fux began the day by calling for the entire trial to be annulled because, he argued, the Supreme Court is not the competent court to hear the case, he closed the day by voting for Bolsonaro to be acquitted due to a lack of evidence.

Judge Fux argued that without overthrowing a government, there is no coup d'état, and dismissed much of the Attorney General's case. The dissenting judge said that Bolsonaro’s behavior was not intended as a coup and that it fits into political activity.

In a statement that lasted more than 10 hours, Fux considered that the Prosecutor's Office did not fully prove everything it has accused Bolsonaro of and asserted that in a criminal trial, "criminal liability must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt," which, in his opinion, was not the case.