Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro commenced his 27-year imprisonment on Tuesday for orchestrating a coup to retain power after losing the 2022 presidential election, a development that many in Brazil had doubted would occur. Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Bolsonaro’s confinement at Brazil’s Federal Police headquarters in Brasilia, where he had been held since Saturday following reports that he had removed his ankle monitor using a soldering iron.
Bolsonaro will be isolated from the few other inmates at the federal police headquarters, residing in a 12-square-meter room equipped with a bed, private bathroom, air conditioning, TV, and desk. Brazil’s criminal law also permitted the option of transferring the 70-year-old ex-president to a local penitentiary or a prison cell in a military facility in Brasilia.
The former president and his associates were convicted by a group of Supreme Court justices for plotting to subvert Brazil’s democracy post his electoral defeat in 2022. The scheme included strategies to eliminate President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Vice-President Geraldo Alckmin, and Justice de Moraes, as well as inciting insurrection in early 2023. Bolsonaro was found guilty of leading an armed criminal group and attempting to violently overthrow democratic rule.
Despite maintaining his innocence, Bolsonaro’s appeals were exhausted, and the Supreme Court formally closed the coup-plotting case, upholding the guilty verdict. Bolsonaro, a prominent figure in Brazilian politics, remains ineligible to run until 2030 per a separate ruling by Brazil’s electoral court, yet polls indicate he would be a strong contender if allowed to participate in the next election.
A close ally of former U.S. President Donald Trump, Bolsonaro was implicated in a U.S. government order to increase tariffs on various Brazilian exports by 50%. Prior to his detention, Bolsonaro was under house arrest in Brasilia for over 100 days in a separate case involving allegations of seeking Trump’s intervention to halt legal proceedings against him. Relations between the two countries have since improved, with Lula and Trump meeting in Malaysia at the ASEAN summit in October, resulting in the reduction of most elevated tariffs.
