Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro has been taken into police custody after the country’s Supreme Court deemed him a flight risk for tampering with his ankle monitor.
The court said on Saturday that the far-right politician – who was under house arrest while he appeals a conviction for a foiled coup attempt – had tried to disable his ankle monitor in order to escape.
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In a video made public by the court, Bolsonaro admitted that he had used a soldering iron on the monitoring bracelet out of “curiosity”.
The footage showed the device badly damaged and burned, but still on his ankle.
Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes said Bolsonaro’s detention was a preventive measure. He also cited a planned vigil by supporters outside Bolsonaro’s home on Saturday, which he said could undermine police monitoring of his house arrest.
“The tumult caused by an illegal gathering of the convict’s supporters has a strong chance of putting at risk the house arrest and other precautionary measures, allowing for his eventual escape,” Moraes wrote.
Bolsonaro’s son, Flavio, who had called for the vigil, had urged Bolsonaro supporters to come and “fight for your country”.
Bolsonaro’s lawyers said they would appeal the detention order.
They said the arrest of the 70-year-old former president caused “deep perplexity”, adding that the prayer vigil was guaranteed by Brazil’s constitution under the right to religious freedom.
‘Act of desperation’
Bolsonaro was sentenced in September to 27 years and three months in prison for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 presidential election to leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The former army captain was identified as the leader and main beneficiary of a scheme to prevent Lula from taking office in 2023.
The plot allegedly involved a plan to assassinate Lula, his vice president, Geraldo Alckmin, and Moraes.
However, the courts have not yet issued a final arrest order in that case, as Bolsonaro has not exhausted the appeals process.
In his Saturday ruling, Moraes also highlighted the proximity of Bolsonaro’s home to the United States embassy, raising the risk of him seeking political asylum.
Bolsonaro is an ally of US President Donald Trump, who had called the trial a “witch-hunt” and imposed punitive tariffs and sanctions against Brazil over it.
Moraes also cited evidence that Bolsonaro had previously considered seeking asylum in the Argentinian embassy in Brasilia. One of his sons, federal lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro, and other close allies have fled Brazil to avoid the reach of the country’s courts, the judge noted in his decision.
Moraes gave Bolsonaro’s lawyers 24 hours to explain the damage to the ankle monitor.
Bolsonaro’s son, Flavio, told reporters that his father could have burned the ankle monitor as an “act of desperation” or out of “shame” for having to wear it in front of visiting relatives.
Bolsonaro has now been taken to a federal police complex in Brasilia, where prisoners undergo medical examinations before being sent to jail, the AFP news agency reported. He is being detained in a small holding cell with a single bed, a television, air conditioning and a toilet, according to a description and a video released by federal police.
On Saturday afternoon, Trump told reporters outside the White House that he had been unaware of Bolsonaro’s arrest.
“Is that what happened? That’s too bad,” he added. He said he had spoken to Lula on Friday and would be meeting with him soon.
In a harsher remark, US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said Washington was “gravely concerned” by Justice Moraes’s “latest attack on the rule of law and political stability in Brazil”.
“There is nothing more dangerous to democracy than a judge who knows no limits on his power,” Landau wrote on X.
‘Political persecution’
Dozens of Bolsonaro supporters, meanwhile, gathered on Saturday night by a sound truck outside his gated community. They sang evangelical Christian hymns as Flavio Bolsonaro wiped away tears, standing next to a cardboard cutout of his father.
“I don’t know what’s going on inside the Federal Police now. If something happens to my father, Alexandre de Moraes, if my father dies in there, it’s your fault,” Flavio said in a live video broadcast.
If Bolsonaro’s appeals are unsuccessful, his defence has said he should be allowed to serve his nearly three-decade sentence under house arrest, citing health issues. The former president, who was stabbed in the abdomen during a 2018 campaign event, has a history of hospitalisations and surgeries related to the attack.
Outside the federal police complex where Bolsonaro was being held, a group of women gathered and uncorked a bottle of sparkling wine to celebrate his imprisonment.
Ana Denise Sousa, 47, a high school philosophy teacher, told AFP she was overjoyed.
“The biggest scoundrel, the worst guy … who screwed everyone over, who [attempted] a coup, who never felt pity for anyone – and now he’s going to pay,” she said.
Supporters also arrived at the scene, draped in Brazil’s green and yellow flag.
“This is all political persecution,” said Alessandro Goncalves de Almeida, a 53-year-old rideshare driver.
