Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, 70, who has been under house arrest since August, was taken into custody on Saturday after a judge deemed him a flight risk.
The former president, who ruled Brazil from 2019 to 2022, was on trial for a botched coup attempt. In August, he was placed under house arrest for violating the measures imposed on him.
In his ruling ordering the pre-trial detention, Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes said Bolsonaro’s ankle monitor, which he had been wearing since July 18 because he was considered a flight risk, had been breached.
The preventive arrest does not mean that Bolsonaro will remain at the federal police headquarters to serve out his sentence. Brazilian law requires all convicts to begin their sentence in prison.
“This information shows that the convict’s intention to break the ankle monitoring to ensure that his escape would be successful, which would facilitate the confusion that would be caused by the demonstration organized by his son,” said the justice.
He was sentenced to 27 years in prison in September after being convicted on charges that he attempted a coup to prevent leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office following his election defeat in 2022.
