Lawyers for Jair Bolsonaro will present their defence arguments at his trial at the Supreme Court in Brasília on Wednesday.
The former Brazilian President governed the country from January 2019 to December 2022, and is accused of leading an attempted coup after his defeat in the 2022 presidential election.
On Tuesday, the judge presiding over the trial alleged that Bolsonaro had tried to install a "veritable dictatorship" after losing to his left-wing rival, Luiz Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Bolsonaro has denied the charges and denounced the trial against him as a politically-motivated "witch hunt".
The former president was not in attendance at Tuesday's session, which marked the start of the final phase of the trial.
