🔗 Share this article

Jair Bolsonaro has been arrested after authorities determined he posed a concrete flight risk while under house arrest.

The ex-president was found guilty of planning a government overthrow in last fall and sentenced more than over two decades in prison, but he continued under house arrest pending legal challenges.

Top Judicial Official Justice Moraes said the action to imprison the elderly politician was a safety action after "new facts" were revealed.

This encompassed attempting to break his electronic bracelet and a invitation to a demonstration that could "allow for a potential flight.

Legal Document Reveals Flight Fears

In a document approving the detention, Justice Moraes said intelligence from the facility tracking the former president's confinement suggested the one-time head of state's aim to disable the surveillance device to secure accomplishment in his getaway".

This, it said, would be assisted by the confusion caused by the protest called by his child.

His offspring, Flávio Bolsonaro, who works as a legislator, called for a gathering of his followers near Bolsonaro's home to take place on Saturday night.

Flávio Bolsonaro wrote on online platforms on last Friday: Do you plan to struggle for your nation, or watch it all from your smartphone there on your settee? I invite you to struggle with us."

He said the vigil would be so backers could "pray for his health and for the restoration of democratic rule in our land."

Diplomatic Refuge Fears

Part of Justice Moraes's decision was the chance of the former president's move to foreign missions near the residence, considering that the probes revealed a record of arranging to ask for protection through a consular facility", a declaration said.

The legal document emphasizes that the US embassy in the national capital, Brazil's capital, is located around approximately 13 kilometers from the former president's residence.

Worldwide Consequences

Bolsonaro's legal woes have generated frustration from fellow right-wing populist United States President Donald Trump, prompting him to implement a 50% tariff on imports of Brazilian goods.

The former president is being held in a national police facility in Brazil's capital city and will undergo a imprisonment assessment on the following 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 asked that the former president be authorized to exit his dwelling for medical care, saying he demanded frequent medical attention for lung conditions and other health problems.

Context of Sentencing

He was convicted of heading a plot aimed at maintaining his control after he was defeated in the presidential race to his ideological adversary, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Supreme Court justices said that he knew of a plan which encompassed plans to murder the current president and his VP candidate, Alckmin, and to detain and kill the presiding judge - the Supreme Court justice who has been presiding over his judicial proceedings.

The plot was stopped because it didn't receive the endorsement of the military leaders. The current president was sworn in without incident on the first day of 2023.

But a seven days after, on the eighth of January, thousands of his backers invaded and destroyed official structures in the capital, Brasília.

The security forces stepped in and around 1,500 people were taken into custody.

The magistrates found that the protesters had been encouraged by the former president whose strategy, they said, was for the national armed forces to step in, bring back stability and return him to office.

At the moment, his attorneys called the decades-long sentence "absurdly excessive.

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 trial a "witch hunt and said it was aimed at blocking him competing in the next presidential race.