🔗 Share this article

Jair Bolsonaro has been taken into custody after authorities concluded he posed a definite escape threat while under domestic detention.

The ex-president was found guilty of planning a military coup in the ninth month and given more than a 27-year term in prison, but he remained under home detention pending legal challenges.

Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes said the decision to arrest the 70-year-old politician was a safety action after recent developments emerged.

This involved attempting to break his tracking device and a invitation to a demonstration that could facilitate a possible escape.

Court Filing Details Escape Risks

In a paperwork permitting the arrest, the judge said intelligence from the facility tracking the former president's confinement suggested the one-time head of state's plan to remove the tracking monitor to secure accomplishment in his flight.

This, it said, would be made easier by the chaos caused by the demonstration called by his child.

His son, Flávio Bolsonaro, who holds office as a senator, called for a assembly of his backers near the former president's residence to take place on the weekend.

The senator wrote on digital networks on Friday: Do you plan to struggle for your country, or see it all from your smartphone there on your sofa? I invite you to fight with us."

He said the gathering would be so supporters could "pray for his health and for the reestablishment of democratic governance in our nation."

Embassy Asylum Concerns

Part of the magistrate's determination was the potential of his transfer to diplomatic missions near the home, considering that the probes revealed a record of organizing to ask for protection through a consular facility", a declaration said.

The legal document underscores that the United States embassy in the capital, the capital city, is situated around 13km from his dwelling.

International Reactions

Bolsonaro's legal woes have drawn the ire of fellow right-wing populist US President Trump, leading him to impose a fifty percent tax on imports of Brazilian goods.

The former president is being detained in a national police facility in Brazil's capital city and will have a detention review on the next day.

Latest Court Petitions

It was only on Friday that the ex-leader's attorneys asked the High Court to allow him to complete his entire prison term under house arrest, with digital surveillance.

They also petitioned that he be permitted to leave his home for medical treatment, saying he demanded regular treatment for respiratory ailments and other health problems.

Context of Sentencing

He was convicted of leading a plot aimed at maintaining his control after he lost the 2022 election to his left-wing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Supreme Court justices said that he was aware of a scheme which included plans to kill the current president and his vice-presidential running mate, Geraldo Alckmin, and to imprison and murder Justice Moraes - the Supreme Court justice who has been managing Bolsonaro's trial.

The conspiracy was prevented because it didn't receive the support of the army and air force commanders. The current president was took office without incident on the first day of 2023.

But a following week, on the eighth of January, many his followers invaded and destroyed public facilities in the national capital, Brasília.

The law enforcement intervened and around fifteen hundred individuals were arrested.

The magistrates found that the protesters had been encouraged by the former president whose plan, they said, was for the country's army to take action, restore order and reinstate his authority.

At the time, the legal team called the over 27-year sentence "absurdly excessive.

He was also barred from running for public office until 2060 - a decade minus two years after the conclusion of his imprisonment.

The one-time head of state called the legal proceedings a targeted investigation" and said it was aimed at blocking him competing in the 2026 presidential election.