\n<\/p>\n
Tattoo artist Bruno Ferreira has inked countless superheroes and superstars on to Brazilian bodies during his 25-year career: Wonder Woman, Batman, Ayrton Senna and Pel\u00e9.<\/p>\n
But when Adauto Gomes Nascimento marched into his studio earlier this year, he had a different personality in mind: a muscular, shaven-headed supreme court judge called Alexandre de Moraes, who is now one of Brazil\u2019s biggest and most controversial celebrities.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe means everything to me. He\u2019s someone who sticks up for Brazil \u2026 He\u2019s a good person and a good judge,\u201d said Nascimento, a 37-year-old butcher from the Amazon city of Bel\u00e9m, explaining why he spent six hours and 3,000 reais (\u00a3410, $550) to get Moraes\u2019s face immortalized on his shin.<\/p>\n
If tattooing a supreme court judge\u2019s face on to your leg seems a peculiar decision, Brazil\u2019s exceptional political landscape helps explain Nascimento\u2019s choice.<\/p>\n
Moraes is the judge presiding over the historic trial of Jair Bolsonaro, which began in the capital Bras\u00edlia last week. And Moraes\u2019s quest to hold Brazil\u2019s ex-president to account for allegedly engineering a coup after he lost the 2022 election to his arch-rival, Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva, has made the pugnacious, muay thai-fighting magistrate a hero \u2013 and even a sex symbol \u2013 for progressives and a hated figure for Bolsonaro\u2019s devotees.<\/p>\n
Even Elon Musk, one of Bolsonaro\u2019s most famous foreign fans, has called the 56-year-old jurist \u201can evil dictator cosplaying as a judge\u201d and \u201cBrazil\u2019s Darth Vader\u201d, and compared him to the Harry Potter villain Lord Voldemort.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe intrigues and fascinates his detractors and his admirers in equal measure,\u201d said the journalist Thais Bilenky, who made a six-part podcast about Moraes called Alexandre. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s anyone who inspires so much love and so much hate, so much fear and so much admiration, as him.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/span>Adauto Gomes Nascimento\u2019s tattoo Alexandre de Moraes inked on his leg, on 20 August 2025.<\/span> Photograph: Alessandro Falco\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Moraes\u2019s path to becoming one of Brazil\u2019s most influential and contentious figures begins in S\u00e3o Paulo in 1986 \u2013 a year after democracy was restored following two decades of military rule. That was when a teenage Moraes enrolled at Brazil\u2019s top law school \u2013 an elite institution that has educated a third of the country\u2019s 39 presidents \u2013 and took his first steps towards becoming a household name known simply as \u201cXand\u00e3o\u201d, or \u201cBig Al\u201d.<\/p>\n Today, many leftwing Brazilians hail Moraes as the saviour of the world\u2019s fifth largest democracy. But during his university days Moraes was a man of the right. \u201cThe last thing he would have had in his room was a Che poster!\u201d his friend Floriano de Azevedo Marques Neto told the French newspaper Le Monde in 2023.<\/p>\n After graduating, Moraes built a reputation as a no-nonsense workaholic \u2013 and an enviable CV. He came first in the entrance exam to become a public prosecutor and, in his late 20s, proved his mettle by taking on one of Brazil\u2019s most powerful politicians, S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s then mayor, Paulo Maluf, during a corruption investigation called \u201cChickengate\u201d. Moraes also found time to write a 1,000-page tome about constitutional law that sold hundreds of thousands of copies.<\/p>\n In 2002, at age 33, Moraes moved into politics, becoming the youngest justice secretary in S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s history. Among his missions was to clean up the state\u2019s abuse-ridden young offender institutions. Elo\u00edsa Machado, a law professor who then worked as a human rights lawyer defending incarcerated teens, recalled her first encounter with Moraes, in early 2005. After she denounced torture in one detention centre, Moraes went there in person and ordered the arrest of more than 20 staff. \u201cIt was the first time [in Brazil] that anyone had been arrested on the spot for torturing teenagers,\u201d Machado said, adding: \u201cHe\u2019s always had this combative profile.\u201d<\/p>\n By 2015, Moraes\u2019s fame was spreading. He became S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s public security secretary \u2013 a job that gave him control over policing in Brazil\u2019s biggest city and most populous state \u2013 and was vilified by leftists for what they considered his authoritarian response to protests against the impeachment of Brazil\u2019s leftwing president Dilma Rousseff. On one occasion, Moraes compared leftist demonstrators to guerrillas.<\/p>\n Opposition politicians were aghast when Rousseff\u2019s successor, the conservative Michel Temer, invited Moraes to be his justice minister in 2016, and, a year later, appointed the 48-year-old as the supreme court\u2019s youngest member. Gleisi Hoffmann, a close Lula ally, called Moraes a threat to democracy.<\/p>\n <\/span>Bolsonaro supporters during a protest against the government of Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva in Bras\u00edlia on 3 August 2025.<\/span> Photograph: Ueslei Marcelino\/The Guardian<\/p>\n But such bad blood was soon forgotten. After Bolsonaro took power in January 2019, Moraes quickly became one of the most energetic and effective opponents of the far-right politician\u2019s authoritarian designs.<\/p>\n He ran a series of supreme court investigations into the president and his allies; blocked social media accounts belonging to far-right activists; and ordered controversial police raids on wealthy Bolsonaro supporters suspected of discussing a coup.<\/p>\n On the eve of the 2022 election \u2013 widely seen as one of the most consequential in Brazilian history \u2013 Moraes became president of the court responsible for organizing elections and was widely credited with taking decisive action to keep the vote on track, despite Bolsonaro\u2019s alleged attempt to steal it.<\/p>\n On the day of the election\u2019s crucial second round, Moraes helped frustrate an alleged attempt to use highway police to obstruct Lula voters, by threatening to arrest their commander. When Bolsonaro supporters ran riot on 8 January 2023, after Lula\u2019s inauguration, the judge suspended Bras\u00edlia\u2019s governor as federal authorities battled to regain control.<\/p>\n \u201cBrazil owes him a lot,\u201d the supreme court judge Gilmar Mendes said of Moraes recently, reflecting the widely held view that his colleague had been instrumental in protecting democracy.<\/p>\n Hardcore Bolsonaristas disagree \u2013 and even some progressives worry Moraes may have overstepped his <\/em>constitutional authority in his crusade to protect democracy. A sprawling supreme court inquiry into fake news \u2013 created in 2019 to tackle an explosion of far-right misinformation \u2013 has been under way for six years and it remains unclear when the investigation might conclude, or precisely who has been targeted, and why.<\/p>\n At protests, Bolsonaristas wield placards claiming their country has become \u201ca judicial dictatorship\u201d and hurl insults and obscenities at Moraes. \u201cHe\u2019s the uncircumcised son of Belial!\u201d one pro-Bolsonaro marcher, Francisco Ant\u00f4nio, fumed at a recent rally in the capital.<\/p>\n <\/span>Alexandre de Moraes in court in Bras\u00edlia on 20 August.<\/span> Photograph: Andr\u00e9 Borges\/EPA<\/p>\n Sebasti\u00e3o Coelho, a retired Bolsonarista judge, accused Moraes of trampling on the constitution and demanded his impeachment: \u201cAlexandre de Moraes isn\u2019t a judge \u2026 He\u2019s a criminal who is laying waste to our country.\u201d<\/p>\n Officials in Donald Trump\u2019s administration have echoed that rhetoric, accusing Moraes and his fellow judges of leading a \u201cwitch-hunt\u201d against the US president\u2019s South American ally. In July Moraes was sanctioned by the US treasury for allegedly leading \u201can oppressive campaign of censorship, arbitrary detentions that violate human rights and politicized prosecutions \u2013 including against former president Jair Bolsonaro\u201d.<\/p>\n Those who have tracked Moraes\u2019s career doubt such pressure will make him cave in over Bolsonaro\u2019s trial, which is due to conclude on 12 September, with a conviction and hefty sentence thought likely.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s a powerful person who isn\u2019t afraid \u2013 he\u2019s always on the attack,\u201d Nascimento, the Amazon butcher, said of the man tattooed on to his limb. \u201cI like this about him too. He really goes for it \u2026 He gets things sorted.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tattoo artist Bruno Ferreira has inked countless superheroes and superstars on to Brazilian bodies during his 25-year career: Wonder Woman, Batman, Ayrton Senna and Pel\u00e9. 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