🔗 Share this article

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

The ex-president was found guilty of planning a armed takeover in last fall and given more than a 27-year term in prison, but he was staying under house arrest pending appeals.

Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Justice Moraes said the action to imprison the elderly politician was a preventative measure after "new facts" emerged.

This involved attempting to break his electronic bracelet and a summons to a public vigil that could facilitate a potential flight.

Court Filing Details Escape Risks

In a filing authorising the detention, the magistrate said information from the centre monitoring Bolsonaro's house arrest suggested the ex-president's aim to disable the tracking monitor to ensure success in his flight.

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

His offspring, Flávio Bolsonaro, who holds office as a legislator, called for a gathering of his supporters near the former president's residence to take place on the weekend.

His son wrote on digital networks on Friday: "Are you going to fight for your homeland, or see it all from your phone there on your settee? I urge you to battle with us."

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

Foreign Shelter Risks

Part of the magistrate's decision was the potential of his "relocation to embassies near the residence, considering that the inquiries revealed a record of organizing to seek refuge through a consular facility", a statement said.

The legal document emphasizes that the US embassy in the national capital, Brasilia, is positioned around 8 miles from the former president's residence.

Global Responses

His judicial problems have drawn the ire of fellow right-wing populist United States President President Trump, prompting him to impose a 50% tariff on goods coming from Brazil.

The former president is being detained in a national police facility in Brasilia and will undergo a custody hearing on the following day.

Recent Legal Requests

It was only on the previous day that the ex-leader's attorneys asked the Supreme Court to permit him to serve his whole jail sentence under domestic detention, with digital surveillance.

They also petitioned that he be permitted to depart his residence for medical care, saying he needed regular treatment for respiratory ailments and other ailments.

Details of Guilty Verdict

The former president was found guilty of heading a plot aimed at maintaining his control after he failed to win the presidential race to his ideological adversary, Lula.

Supreme Court justices said that he had knowledge of a plot which encompassed plans to murder Lula and his VP candidate, Alckmin, and to arrest and execute Justice Moraes - the Supreme Court justice who has been presiding over Bolsonaro's trial.

The plot was prevented because it couldn't obtain the endorsement of the armed forces officials. The current president was inaugurated without issue on 1 January 2023.

But a seven days after, on the eighth of January, thousands of his followers invaded and destroyed public facilities in the federal district, Brasília.

The police stepped in and around fifteen hundred individuals were arrested.

The judges found that the protesters had been provoked by the former president whose plan, they said, was for the national armed forces to intervene, restore order and bring him back to power.

At the time, the legal team called the decades-long sentence unreasonably severe".

He was also barred from running for public office until twenty-sixty - eight years later after the completion of his term.

The ex-leader called the court case a "witch hunt and said it was designed to prevent him participating in the 2026 presidential election.