Brazil's former president Jair Bolsonaro rallied thousands of people Sunday to a demonstration in Sao Paulo against charges levied by the Supreme Court that he plotted a coup.

"What these guys really want isn't to lock me up, they want to kill me, because I'm a thorn in their throat," Bolsonaro said of the judges, who he has accused of persecuting him.

The far-right leader's rally brought out around 45,000 people to the financial center's prestigious Paulista Avenue, according to a count by the University of Sao Paolo, many of them wearing the national football strip adopted by his supporters.