The former Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been arrested in execution of a preventive arrest warrant issued by the Federal Supreme Court. The Brazilian Federal Police reports this in a note. This is a precautionary detention, underlines “O Globo”, and not the sentence of 27 years and three months in prison to which Bolsonaro was sentenced last September for an attempted military coup.
The former president was taken to the Superintendency of the Federal Police, where he will be held in a representation room, a space reserved for authorities and high-ranking public figures. The former president was arrested around 6am and the convoy transporting him arrived at the Federal Police headquarters at 6.35am.
According to “O Globo”, the arrest was motivated by public order reasons and follows the vigil in support of the former president called yesterday by his son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, whose initiative was deemed by the police to be “a risk for the participants and the agents”. Just yesterday, Bolsonaro’s lawyers had asked that the ultra-conservative former president be allowed to serve his sentence under house arrest, since their client has a “serious clinical condition”, suffers from “multiple comorbidities” and therefore a possible transfer to prison would represent a “real risk for his life”.
The sentence has not yet become final and the conclusion of the appeal phase is still awaited. While awaiting the execution of the sentence, Bolsonaro was placed under house arrest for having violated some precautionary measures. The judges found the septuagenarian guilty of organizing a coup to overthrow socialist president Ignacio Lula da Silva, who narrowly beat him in the 2022 elections. According to the prosecution, the plot involved the assassination of Lula and the Supreme Court judge who is now presiding over the case, Alexandre de Moraes. The conspiracy, according to the prosecution’s theory, failed due to the lack of support from the leaders of the armed forces.