Bolsonaro detained after being deemed a risk of fleeing
Jair Bolsonaro has been taken into custody after authorities concluded he posed a definite escape threat while under home confinement.
The former head of state was sentenced of orchestrating a armed takeover in last fall and sentenced more than a 27-year term in prison, but he continued under house arrest pending court reviews.
Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Justice Moraes said the action to imprison the elderly politician was a preventative measure after "new facts" were revealed.
This encompassed seeking to disable his tracking device and a summons to a supporters' gathering that could "allow for a potential flight.
Court Filing Details Flight Fears
In a filing authorising the detention, the magistrate said intelligence from the centre monitoring the former president's confinement suggested the ex-president's aim to disable the electronic ankle bracelet to ensure success in his flight.
This, it said, would be assisted by the disorder caused by the gathering called by his son.
His son, Flávio, who serves as a legislator, called for a assembly of his followers near the former president's residence to take place on the weekend.
The senator wrote on digital networks on the previous day: Do you plan to struggle for your homeland, or see it all from your smartphone there on your settee? I urge you to struggle with us."
He said the vigil would be so supporters could "pray for his physical condition and for the restoration of democratic rule in our land."
Diplomatic Refuge Fears
Part of Justice Moraes's determination was the potential of Bolsonaro's transfer to foreign missions near the home, considering that the inquiries revealed a background of planning to ask for protection through a consular facility", a statement said.
The court filing highlights that the US embassy in the national capital, Brazil's capital, is positioned around 13km from the former president's residence.
Global Responses
The former president's legal troubles have drawn the ire of fellow populist conservative US President Trump, leading him to implement a fifty percent tax on imports of Brazilian goods.
He is being held in a Federal Police station in Brazil's capital city and will have a custody hearing on the next day.
Recent Judicial Appeals
It was only on the previous day that the former president's lawyers asked the Supreme Court to authorize him to serve his whole jail sentence under home confinement, with electronic monitoring.
They also asked that the former president be permitted to exit his dwelling for healthcare, saying he demanded frequent medical attention for respiratory ailments and other ailments.
Background on Conviction
The former president was convicted of orchestrating a conspiracy aimed at maintaining his control after he lost the presidential race to his ideological adversary, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Top judicial officials said that he was aware of a scheme which encompassed plans to kill his opponent and his running partner, his vice-presidential candidate, and to imprison and murder the presiding judge - the Supreme Court justice who has been presiding over Bolsonaro's trial.
The scheme was stopped because it failed to get the endorsement of the army and air force commanders. The current president was inaugurated without incident on January 1st, 2023.
But a following week, on January 8th, numerous Bolsonaro supporters invaded and destroyed government buildings in the capital, Brasília.
The police stepped in and around fifteen hundred individuals were detained.
The magistrates found that the protesters had been incited by him whose strategy, they said, was for the country's army to step in, bring back stability and reinstate his authority.
At the time, his attorneys called the 27 years and three months sentence extremely harsh.
He was also barred from running for public office until twenty-sixty - a decade minus two years after the completion of his term.
The former president called the trial a political persecution and said it was intended to stop him participating in the 2026 presidential election.