Bolsonaro

Brazil’s former president, convicted of a foiled coup, is under arrest after taking a soldering iron to the monitoring device.

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has told a judge that “hallucinations” provoked by a change in his medication led him to tamper with his angle tag while under house arrest for an attempted coup.

In a custody hearing on Sunday following his detention the previous day over the incident, the far-right former leader told a Supreme Court judge that he experienced a medicine-induced “paranoia” that led him to take a soldering iron to the device.

“[Bolsonaro] said he had ‘hallucinations’ that there was some wiretap in the ankle monitoring, so he tried to uncover it,” said Assistant Judge Luciana Sorrentino in a court document published shortly after the online hearing with the former president.

Bolsonaro was under house arrest while appealing his conviction for a botched military coup after his 2022 election loss, but had been taken into custody on Saturday after police reports he had attempted to violate the ankle tag rendered him a potential flight risk.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the arrest hours after receiving information at 12:08am [03:08 GMT] on Saturday that the tag had been violated.

Bolsonaro denied he was trying to escape, telling Sorrentino that a mix of medicines prescribed by different doctors had led to the episode. He said he began taking one of them only four days before his detention on Saturday morning.

“The witness stated that, around midnight, he tampered with the ankle bracelet, then ‘came to his senses’ and stopped using the soldering iron, at which point he informed the officers in charge of his custody,” the court document said.

Sunday’s meeting was procedural in nature, but provided an opportunity for Bolsonaro’s lawyers to argue that the former president should remain under house arrest due to poor health. De Moraes has previously rejected similar requests.

A panel of Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled in September that Bolsonaro tried to stage a coup and keep the presidency after his defeat by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2022, sentencing him to 27 years and three months in prison.

On Monday, the same panel will vote on the pre-emptive arrest order.

President Lula made his first comments about his predecessor’s jailing at a meeting of the Group of 20 (G20) bloc of nations in South Africa. “The court ruled, that’s decided. Everyone knows what he did,” Lula told journalists.

Nov. 22 (UPI) — Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was detained early Saturday in Brasilia because of a possible “attempted escape” to an embassy days before he was to begin his 27-year prison sentence for leading a coup attempt.

Brazil’s Supreme Court issued a preventive arrest warrant that had been sought by police for Bolonaro, 70, who had been under house arrest with an ankle monitor since early August.

Bolsonaro, Brazil’s president from 2019 to 2022, is being held in a Federal Police station in Brasilia and will undergo a custody hearing on Sunday, the BBC reported.

He is scheduled to begin serving his sentence as the court reviews his appeals.

There was the possibility of “relocation to embassies near the residence, considering that the investigations revealed a history of planning to request asylum through a diplomatic representation,” the court said.

In August, police obtained a document during a raid that Bolsonaro had planned to seek asylum in Argentina last year. And days after the operation, he spent two nights at the Hungarian Embassy in Brazil in an apparent bid for asylum.

Bolsonaro’s lawyers planned to appeal the arrest, denying that Bolsonaro was attempting to flee.

Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who wrote the order, said “new facts” had come to light about the far-right former president.

His intention was “to break the electronic ankle bracelet to ensure success in his escape” that would be “facilitated by the confusion caused by the demonstration called by his son” outside his apartment complex.

The judge described it as a “high possibility of an attempted escape.”

The vigil planned for Saturday night was organized by his oldest son, Flavio, a senator.

“Are you going to fight for your country or just watch everything on your phone on your couch at home?” he asked his followers in a social media video.

The court also said it was informed that there was a violation of Bolsonaro’s electronic monitoring equipment early Saturday.

“The information confirms the convict’s intention to break the electronic ankle bracelet in order to ensure the success of his escape, facilitated by the confusion caused by the demonstration,” the court said.

Bolsonaro’s sentence was to begin next week after all appeals were exhausted.

“The fact is that the former president was arrested at his home, with an electronic ankle monitor and under police surveillance. Furthermore, Jair Bolsonaro’s health is delicate and his imprisonment may put his life at risk,” his lawyers said in a statement.

And they noted the protest is protected by law.

On Sept. 11, Bolsonaro was sentenced and convicted in a plot to remain in power after losing the 2022 election to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Four of five justices convicted him on all five counts.

Aside from the coup attempt, Bolsonaro was found guilty of taking part in an armed criminal organization, attempting to abolish Brazil’s democratic order by force, committing violent acts against state institutions and damaging protected public property after his supporters stormed government buildings on Jan. 8, 2023.

He is barred from running for public office until 2060, eight years after his sentence would end, when he would 105 years old.

On Friday, Bolsonaro’s lawyers asked the Supreme Court to allow him to serve his whole jail sentence under house arrest with electronic monitoring. He would be able to leave for medical treatment, including for pulmonary infections and other ailments.

Earlier this month, high-ranking military officials and a federal police officer were sentenced to prison after the Supreme Court justices found them guilty of attempting a coup and plotting to kill Lula da Silva.

“The message to Brazil, and to the world, is that crime doesn’t pay,” Reimont Otoni, a Workers’ party congressman and backer of Otono.

Otoni noted Bolsonaro’s plot included a conspiracy to assassinate Lula.

Also, high court justices knew about plans to assassinate Lula’s vice presidential running mate, and to arrest and execute de Moraes.

The conspiracy failed to get the backing of the army and air force commanders, and Lula was sworn in on Jan. 1, 2023.

One week later, supporters stormed and vandalized government buildings in the capital, Brasilia.

Bonsonaro, who has been referred to as the “Trump of the tropics,” has contended it was a “witch hunt.” U.S. President Donald Trump also calls it a “witch hunt” and punished the nation for the “disgrace” of how Bolsonaro has been treated, as well as for an “unfair trade relationship.”

The former president is taken in the capital Brasilia days before starting his prison time for leading coup attempt.

Brazil’s federal police have arrested former President Jair Bolsonaro, days before he was set to begin his 27-year prison sentence for leading a coup attempt, according to his lawyer and a close aide.

Bolsonaro, who has been under house arrest since August, was transferred to detention on Saturday, his lawyer said.

“He has been imprisoned, but I don’t know why,” Celso Vilardi, one of his lawyers, told the AFP news agency.

A close aide told The Associated Press news agency that the embattled former leader was taken to the police headquarters in the capital, Brasilia.

Bolsonaro’s aide Andriely Cirino confirmed to AP that the arrest took place at about 6am (03:00 GMT) on Saturday.

The force said in a short statement, which did not name Bolsonaro, that it acted on the request of Brazil’s Supreme Court.

Neither Brazil’s federal police nor the Supreme Court provided more details at the time of publication.

Sentenced for coup attempt

The 70-year-old former president was taken from his house in a gated community in the upscale Jardim Botanico neighbourhood to the federal police headquarters, Cirino said.

Local media reported that Bolsonaro, who was Brazil’s president from 2019 to 2022, was expected to begin serving his sentence sometime next week after the far-right leader exhausted all appeals of his conviction for leading a coup attempt.

The 70-year-old Bolsonaro’s legal team had previously argued that he should serve his 27-year sentence for a botched coup bid in 2022 at home, arguing imprisonment would pose a risk to his health.

Bolsonaro was convicted in September over his bid to prevent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking power following the 2022 election, which he lost.

The effort saw crowds of rioters storm government buildings a week after Lula’s inauguration, evoking comparisons with the January 6 riot at the United States Capitol after his close ally, President Donald Trump, lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.

Trump has branded the prosecution of his far-right ally a “witch-hunt” and made it a major issue in US relations with Brazil, imposing stiff tariffs on the country as a form of retribution.

Trump and Lula held what Brazil described as a constructive meeting on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Kuala Lumpur last month, raising hope for improved relations after stinging US tariffs.

Lula said the meeting with Trump was “great” and added that their countries’ negotiating teams would get to work “immediately” to tackle tariffs and other issues.

The right-wing leader has sought to appeal his 27-year sentence for allegedly fomenting a coup after his 2022 defeat.

Lawyers for former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro have asked Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes to allow him to serve his 27-year sentence under house arrest, citing health concerns.

According to a document reviewed by the Reuters news agency on Friday, Bolsonaro’s lawyers said the 70-year-old former president’s recurring intestinal issues would make imprisonment life-threatening.

He had been stabbed in the stomach while campaigning in the state of Minas Gerais in 2018.

“It is certain that keeping the petitioner in a prison environment would pose a concrete and immediate risk to his physical integrity and even his life,” the document said. It asked for house arrest on humanitarian grounds.

In September, Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison by a five-judge panel from Brazil’s Supreme Court. He was convicted of plotting a coup to remain in power after losing the 2022 election to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The former right-wing leader has already been under house arrest for violating precautionary measures in a separate case, in which he allegedly courted United States interference to halt the criminal proceedings against him.

Court sources said Bolsonaro’s arrest appeared imminent after the Supreme Court panel earlier this month unanimously rejected an appeal filed by the former president’s legal team.

His lawyers said they would file a new appeal, but they argued that, if it is also rejected, Bolsonaro should begin serving his sentence under house arrest once all appeals are exhausted.

They noted that, earlier this year, the top court let 76-year-old former President Fernando Collor de Mello serve house arrest due to his age and health issues, including Parkinson’s disease, after he was sentenced to almost nine years in prison on corruption and money laundering charges.

Recent medical tests on Bolsonaro show that “a serious or sudden illness is not a question of ‘if’, but of ‘when’,” his legal team said.

One of Bolsonaro’s sons, Carlos, said on Friday that the former president was facing severe hiccups and vomiting constantly. “I’ve never seen him like this,” he wrote on the social media platform X.

Bolsonaro, who governed Brazil between 2019 and 2022, was convicted of five crimes, including participating in an armed criminal organisation, attempting to violently abolish democracy and organising a coup.

On Friday, the former president made a brief appearance in the doorway of his house while receiving a visit from federal lawmaker Nikolas Ferreira.

Movies can become forever memorable through the magic of a singular image, that celebrated “one perfect shot” that illuminates everything before and after it. The Envelope asked directors of five awards-contending documentaries to talk about the shot their film couldn’t live without.

‘Apocalypse in the Tropics’

Director Petra Costa’s sequel to “The Edge of Democracy” (a 2020 Oscar nominee) examines the powerful role played by evangelical Christianity in Brazilian politics and the rise of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro.

“I chose the shot of the Statue of Justice, decapitated and upside down,” says Costa, describing a scene in front of the Supreme Federal Court in Brasilia after Bolsonaro’s supporters sacked the nation’s seat of government on Jan. 8, 2023. “[It] symbolizes much of this story on many levels. This film is ultimately using Brazil as a metaphor for the current crises of our democracies worldwide. This picture symbolizes how violent speech is, not just violent speech. It produces violent action, and that was what brought Bolsonaro to power.”

‘Folktales’

Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing’s “Folktales”

(Magnolia Pictures)

Directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (2007 Academy Award nominees for “Jesus Camp”) follow a group of adolescents through a year at a traditional Norwegian folk high school.

“The first time you see the Tree of Life in the movie,” says Ewing, describing a powerfully symbolic image in the story, “it’s shot from below. It’s a wide angle and it’s almost like a creature. I call it Guillermo del Toro’s tree, because it’s knotty and dead, but it’s everything. It’s breathtaking and there was no other tree like it in the forest. It inspired the whole layer in the film that became the myth of Odin and using Norse mythology as a metaphor for growing up, and we use the tree as our centerpiece.”

‘Predators’

Director David Osit (“Mayor”) unpacks the complex and disturbing legacy of the TV exposé “To Catch a Predator,” which became a pop-culture phenomenon during its run in the mid-aughts.

“So much of my film is about looking at images, and part of it was me looking at images … and really just thinking: The only way I know how to make this movie is I’ve got to give someone the experience I’m having, making the film and looking at material. So there was an image that I filmed, but it didn’t mean anything to me until I saw it. And that’s the image that I chose. There’s this moment in the film where I’m interviewing Dan Schrack, who is one of the decoys who … was involved in what happened in Texas. [The subject of the show’s sting operation took his own life, which led to the show’s cancellation.] I’m having him look at some pictures, and I get a shot from behind him. What I didn’t notice during the filming … was my reflection, perfectly placed in a small mirror. Only for a split second did I think to myself, ‘Oh no, I ruined the shot.’ Immediately afterwards, I felt a deeper understanding … that I couldn’t take myself out of this movie. It wasn’t my intent to be in it, but more often than not, documentaries neuter and make invisible the acts of their creation. And every single time I tried to film this movie, the opposite was happening. My identity, my motivations, my interests kept asserting themselves, and that shot was it. That was the shot where I realized what the film was.”

‘Seeds’

Carlie Williams in “Seeds.”

(Brittany Shyne)

Shot in black and white, Brittany Shyne’s debut feature explores the lives and challenges of Black farmers in south Georgia.

“The scene that I always go back to is with Carlie Williams, the 89-year-old farmer,” Shyne says. “It’s a moment when we’re in his house, and he gets up from his chair, and he goes over to tend to his daughter, Lois. I really like that moment, because we could see a father who’s utterly devoted to his child, making sure that her health is OK. I love that moment of tenderness, because that is something I try to view throughout the whole film, this kind of familial care that we see between generations.”

‘The Tale of Silyan’

(National Geographic Documentary Films)

The Macedonian film, from 2020 Oscar nominee Tamara Kotevska (“Honeyland”), is the story of Nicola, who rescues an injured stork from a landfill after the collapse of his family farm.

“The moment when Nicola captures the stork,” Kotevska says. “It completely changed the course of the film and the story itself. We thought that it was going to be more of a sad story, but it ended up being more of a hopeful story — not a happy one, but a hopeful one. It eventually became a story of a man saving a stork and a stork saving a man.”

Brazil’s top court rejects Bolsonaro’s coup sentence appeal, affirming his 27-year penalty for post-election power grab.

A five-member panel of Brazil’s Supreme Court has formed a majority to reject former President Jair Bolsonaro’s appeal challenging his 27-year prison sentence for plotting a coup to remain in power after the 2022 presidential election.

The 70-year-old far-right firebrand was found guilty by the same court in September of attempting to prevent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking power. Prosecutors said the plan failed only because of a lack of support from the military’s top brass.

Justices Flavio Dino, Alexandre de Moraes and Cristiano Zanin voted to reject the appeal filed by Bolsonaro’s legal team. The remaining members of the panel have until November 14 to cast their votes in the Supreme Court’s system.

The former president will begin serving his sentence only after all appeals are exhausted.

Bolsonaro has been under house arrest since August for violating precautionary measures in a separate case. His lawyers are expected to request that he be allowed to serve his sentence under similar conditions due to health concerns.

Bolsonaro’s lawyers argued there had been “profound injustices” and “contradictions” in his conviction, and sought to have his prison sentence reduced.

Three of the Supreme Court judges weighing the appeal voted to reject it on Friday.

However, the result is not considered official until the court-imposed deadline at midnight on November 14.

Alexandre de Moraes, who presided over the trial, was the first to cast his vote electronically and wrote that arguments by Bolsonaro’s lawyers to have his sentence reduced were “without merit”.

Moraes, in a 141-page document seen by AFP, rejected defence claims they had been given an overwhelming amount of documents and digital files, preventing them from properly mounting their case.

He also rejected an argument that Bolsonaro had given up on the coup, saying it failed only because of external factors, not because the former president renounced it.

Moraes reaffirmed that there had been a deliberate coup attempt orchestrated under Bolsonaro’s leadership, with ample proof of his involvement.

He again underscored Bolsonaro’s role in instigating the January 8 assault on Brazil’s democratic institutions, when supporters demanded a military takeover to oust Lula.

‘Ruling justified’

Moraes ruled that the sentence of 27 years and 3 months was based on Bolsonaro’s high culpability as president and the severity and impact of the crimes. Moraes said Bolsonaro’s age had already been considered as a mitigating factor.

“The ruling justified all stages of the sentencing process,” Moraes wrote.

Two other judges voted in the same way shortly afterwards.

Because of health problems stemming from a stabbing attack in 2018, Bolsonaro could ask to serve his sentence under house arrest.

The trial against Bolsonaro angered his ally, US President Donald Trump, who imposed sanctions on Brazilian officials and punitive trade tariffs.

However, in recent months, tensions have thawed between Washington and Brasilia, with a meeting taking place between Trump and Lula and negotiations to reduce the tariffs.

An initiative from Bolsonaro supporters in Congress to push through an amnesty bill that could benefit him fizzled out after massive protests around the country.

Brazil’s large conservative electorate is currently without a champion heading into 2026 presidential elections, in which Lula, 80, has said he will seek a fourth term.