Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro told a judge on Sunday — his first full day in jail — that he had violated ankle monitoring the day before while under house arrest due to a nervous breakdown and hallucinations caused by a change in medication.
According to the Associated Press, Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes received information that the far-right leader’s ankle monitor had been breached at 08:08 on Saturday. The arrest warrant came a few hours later.
Moraes on Saturday ordered the preventive detention of the 70-year-old leader, saying he was considered a flight risk. Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison in September for attempting a coup to remain in the presidency after his defeat in the 2022 election.
Bolsonaro had “hallucinations”
“(Bolsonaro) said he had a ‘hallucination’ that there was some kind of wire tap on the ankle monitor, so he tried to expose it,” Assistant Justice Luciana Sorrentino was quoted as saying in a Supreme Court document released Sunday shortly after her online meeting with the former president.
Sorrentino added that Bolsonaro told her he “doesn’t remember having a breakdown of this magnitude on another occasion” and speculated that it may have been caused by a change in his medication last week. He again denied any intention of running away.
The document says Bolsonaro also told the judge that he had been sleeping poorly and felt “a certain paranoia” that prompted his curiosity to open the ankle monitoring device.
“(Bolsonaro) said he was with his daughter, older brother and assistant at his house and none of them saw what he was doing with the ankle monitor,” the document says. “He said he started touching it late at night and stopped around midnight.
Doctors say Bolsonaro is physically fine
Two of Bolsonaro’s doctors, who came to support him on Sunday morning, later said in a statement that they had suspended the medication that was said to be bothering the former president. They also said he was physically fine.
A panel of Brazil’s highest court ruled in September that Bolsonaro had attempted a coup and retained the presidency after defeating Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2022.
On Monday, the same panel will vote on the preventive arrest warrant.
Bolsonaro’s meeting with an assistant judge on Sunday was procedural to discuss the legality of his imprisonment, but also provided another opportunity for his lawyers to argue that he should remain under house arrest due to his poor health. De Moraes has previously rejected similar requests.
De Moraes allowed Bolsonaro to be visited by former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro, who was out of Brazil when federal police agents took her husband into custody. She did not speak to journalists after her two-hour visit.
Lula first spoke about his predecessor’s imprisonment at a meeting of the G20 group of nations in South Africa. “The court decided, it’s decided. Everyone knows what he did,” Lula told reporters.
Outside the federal police headquarters, some pro-Bolsonaro protesters held banners calling for the removal of Lula and de Moraes from their posts, while critics of the former president celebrated his imprisonment.
Other Brazilian cities registered demonstrations against Bolsonaro. For several hours, a huge plastic doll of the former president dressed as a prisoner strolled along Sao Paulo’s main thoroughfare. The Pride parade in Rio de Janeiro also rejoiced at the preventive imprisonment of the far-right leader.
(With input from agencies)
