🔗 Share this article

Jair Bolsonaro has been taken into custody after authorities determined he posed a concrete flight risk while under domestic detention.

The ex-president was sentenced of planning a military coup in the ninth month and handed more than a 27-year term in prison, but he remained under home detention pending appeals.

Brazilian Supreme Court Justice the presiding justice said the decision to arrest the elderly politician was a precautionary step after "new facts" were revealed.

This encompassed seeking to disable his ankle monitor and a invitation to a demonstration that could facilitate a potential flight.

Court Filing Details Escape Concerns

In a paperwork permitting the custody, the judge said information from the facility tracking Bolsonaro's house arrest suggested the ex-president's "intention to break the tracking monitor to secure accomplishment in his escape.

This, it said, would be assisted by the disorder caused by the gathering called by his son.

His son, Flávio, who serves as a legislator, called for a assembly of his supporters near his father's house to take place on Saturday night.

Flávio Bolsonaro wrote on digital networks on last Friday: Will you battle for your nation, or observe everything from your smartphone there on your couch? I invite you to fight with us."

He said the gathering would be so followers could "pray for his physical condition and for the restoration of democratic rule in our country."

Embassy Asylum Concerns

Part of the magistrate's determination was the potential of Bolsonaro's "relocation to embassies near the home, considering that the investigations revealed a record of arranging to ask for protection through a diplomatic representation", a declaration said.

The judicial paperwork underscores that the US embassy in the federal district, Brasilia, is situated around 13km from his dwelling.

Global Responses

Bolsonaro's legal woes have drawn the ire of fellow populist conservative American leader Trump, causing him to implement a fifty percent tax on imports of Brazilian goods.

He is being held in a national police facility in Brasilia and will have a imprisonment assessment on the next day.

Latest Court Petitions

It was only on the previous day that the ex-leader's attorneys asked the Top Court to authorize him to fulfill his full incarceration period under house arrest, with electronic monitoring.

They also asked that he be allowed to leave his home for medical care, saying he required ongoing care for lung conditions and other ailments.

Details of Guilty Verdict

Bolsonaro was convicted of orchestrating a scheme aimed at maintaining his control after he failed to win the national vote to his political opponent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

High Court judges said that he was aware of a scheme which included plans to kill the current president and his VP candidate, Alckmin, and to detain and kill Alexandre de Moraes - the top judicial official who has been presiding over his judicial proceedings.

The scheme was prevented because it didn't receive the backing of the armed forces officials. The current president was inaugurated without incident on the first day of 2023.

But a seven days after, on the eighth of January, many Bolsonaro supporters invaded and destroyed government buildings in the federal district, Brazil's capital.

The police intervened and around fifteen hundred individuals were taken into custody.

The judges found that the demonstrators had been provoked by him whose scheme, they said, was for the national armed forces to take action, reestablish control and return him to office.

At the moment, his attorneys called the 27 years and three months sentence extremely harsh.

He was also banned from campaigning for office until twenty-sixty - eight years later after the conclusion of his imprisonment.

The former president called the court case a "witch hunt and said it was intended to stop him running in the next presidential race.