Jair Bolsonaro detained after being declared a risk of fleeing
Bolsonaro has been detained after authorities found he posed a concrete flight risk while under domestic detention.
The ex-president was sentenced of plotting a government overthrow in September and sentenced more than a 27-year term in jail, but he continued under house arrest pending legal challenges.
Top Judicial Official Justice Moraes said the decision to arrest the septuagenarian politician was a preventative measure after fresh information were revealed.
This included trying to remove his tracking device and a call for a supporters' gathering that could "allow for a potential flight.
Judicial Records Show Flight Fears
In a filing authorising the custody, the magistrate said information from the unit overseeing the former president's confinement suggested the ex-president's aim to disable the surveillance device to guarantee victory in his flight.
This, it said, would be assisted by the chaos caused by the demonstration called by his child.
His offspring, Flávio Bolsonaro, who holds office as a senator, called for a assembly of his supporters near his father's house to take place on the weekend.
Flávio Bolsonaro wrote on social media on last Friday: Will you battle for your nation, or see it all from your smartphone there on your sofa? I call on you to struggle with us."
He said the demonstration would be so supporters could offer prayers for his physical condition and for the reestablishment of democratic governance in our land."
Diplomatic Refuge Fears
Part of Justice Moraes's decision was the potential of his move to foreign missions near the residence, considering that the probes revealed a background of organizing to seek refuge through a embassy office", a statement said.
The judicial paperwork underscores that the United States embassy in the federal district, the capital city, is situated around approximately 13 kilometers from the former president's residence.
Global Responses
His judicial problems have generated frustration from fellow populist conservative US President President Trump, leading him to implement a fifty percent tax on Brazilian product imports.
Bolsonaro is being detained in a national police facility in Brazil's capital city and will have a imprisonment assessment on Sunday.
Recent Legal Requests
It was only on last Friday that the ex-leader's attorneys asked the Supreme Court to allow him to complete his entire prison term under house arrest, with digital surveillance.
They also petitioned that the former president be allowed to exit his dwelling for medical care, saying he needed ongoing care for lung conditions and other health problems.
Context of Sentencing
The former president was determined responsible of heading a conspiracy aimed at keeping him in power after he was defeated in the 2022 election to his ideological adversary, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Top judicial officials said that he had knowledge of a scheme which included plans to murder the current president and his running partner, Geraldo Alckmin, and to arrest and execute the presiding judge - the High Court judge who has been overseeing the former president's case.
The scheme was stopped because it didn't receive the support of the military leaders. Lula was inaugurated without incident on 1 January 2023.
But a seven days after, on January 8th, numerous his backers attacked and damaged government buildings in the federal district, Brasília.
The law enforcement intervened and around fifteen hundred individuals were detained.
The justices found that the rioters had been encouraged by him whose scheme, they said, was for the Brazilian military to intervene, bring back stability and bring him back to power.
At the moment, the legal team called the 27 years and three months sentence extremely harsh.
He was also banned from running for public office until twenty-sixty - a decade minus two years after the end of his sentence.
The former president called the court case a "witch hunt and said it was intended to stop him participating in the 2026 national vote.