Supporters of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro gathered on Monday in a prayer vigil in ahead of his trial, next to the condominium where he is under house arrest.

Clutching Bibles and Brazilian flags, demonstrators sang hymns, prayed, and called for divine intervention, claiming the country’s highest court is acting with political bias.

A panel of Supreme Court justices is set to decide this week whether Bolsonaro is guilty or not of plotting to overthrow Brazil's democracy and hang onto power illegally after his 2022 electoral defeat.

The far-right ex-president is facing five counts at trial for allegedly conspiring to stage a coup after his narrow loss to current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist who first won the presidency two decades earlier.

If convicted by the five-judge panel in the verdict expected Thursday or Friday, Bolsonaro could be sentenced to decades behind bars.

Bolsonaro has always denied any wrongdoing, repeatedly calling the trial a politically motivated attack.

Seven other close allies of Bolsonaro are being tried alongside the ex-president, including Walter Braga Netto, his former running mate and defense minister, and Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, another former defense minister.

Deemed a flight risk, Bolsonaro is wearing an ankle monitor and remains under house arrest.

AP Video shot by Eduardo François