Police in Brazil arrested former president Jair Bolsonaro on Saturday amid fears that he might escape house arrest to avoid serving a 27-year prison sentence for a failed coup plot, according to a Brazilian court order.
Bolsonaro, a right-wing politician who led Brazil from 2019 to 2022, was sentenced in September after being convicted of overseeing a plan to cling to power after losing his bid for re-election.
Brazilian authorities were closely watching Bolsonaro, who had been wearing an ankle monitor since August at his home in Brasilia, the capital. Alexandre de Moraes, the Supreme Court justice overseeing the case, had deemed him a flight risk.
Bolsonaro had not begun serving his sentence because the court, until recently, was reviewing his appeals.
He was detained by police officers on Saturday morning. It was a preventative measure to protect his safety and maintain public order before a demonstration planned by his supporters in front of his home, according to a senior police official with direct knowledge of the situation who spoke anonymously to discuss a confidential case.
A Supreme Court order authorising the arrest, which was seen by The New York Times, said Bolsonaro’s electronic ankle monitor had been tampered with just after midnight Saturday. The tampering, the court order said, showed that Bolsonaro intended to break his ankle monitor and escape, “facilitated by the tumult caused by the demonstration”.
Bolsonaro’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In August, police said they had seized a document suggesting Bolsonaro had planned to seek asylum in Argentina last year, shortly after authorities carried out a sweeping operation targeting the former president, seized his passport and arrested some of his close allies.
Days after that operation, Bolsonaro spent two nights at the Hungarian Embassy in Brazil in an apparent bid for asylum in a country led by a right-wing ally, prime minister Viktor Orban. In an interview this year, Bolsonaro refused to explain why he had slept at the embassy.
The arrest on Saturday came just days before Brazil’s Supreme Court was expected to order him to begin serving his sentence.
Bolsonaro’s lawyers had asked the court to allow him to serve it at home because of health problems, which he attributed to complications from a stabbing attack on the campaign trail in 2018. – The New York Times
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