Former Brazilian President Jair Messias Bolsonaro, 70, on Tuesday began serving his 27-year sentence for leading a coup attempt, but without moving a single meter from his cell in the room where he is being held in Brasilia. The judge in charge of the case, apparently due to his age and fragile health, decided that he should remain at the main police headquarters in Brasilia, where he was transferred on Saturday after trying to remove the electronic anklet that was monitoring his movements. The main leader of the Brazilian right is therefore being held in conditions similar to those granted in 2018 to the current president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, thus avoiding detention in a high-security prison or military prison.
Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes, the professor of the case and whom the Bolsonarianism considers its worst enemy, did not respond to the defense’s request to allow him to serve his sentence under house arrest. The army captain in the reserve suffers from recurring digestive crises and hiccups, as a result of the stab wound he suffered in 2018.
The judge accuses him of trying to escape last weekend. Since Saturday, Bolsonaro has been staying in a room of about 12 square meters at the federal police control headquarters in the capital. It has a bed, table, TV and air conditioning. This morning he was visited by two of his sons, and the day before by his wife, who cooks homemade dishes that the former president feeds, and who preferred not to try the Federal Police menu for prisoners.
The Supreme Court, recently established as the great defender of democracy, has asked the armed forces to remove the lines from convicts.
If former President Bolsonaro were to serve his entire sentence, he would be sentenced to nearly 100 years in prison. Brazilian criminal legislation, which places a strong emphasis on social reintegration, stipulates that in a serious case like Bolsonaro’s, a prisoner spends 25% in a closed system (which means six years for him) before moving to semi-freedom that allows him to go out to work. Ultras have been excluded since 2023. Since last August, they have been under house arrest with veto power from using social media networks.
The disappearance from the public arena and the silence imposed by the judge weakened him politically. Efforts by his sons and his party to promote in Congress a clemency or commutation law that would free him from or reduce the burden of imprisonment have, at present, been unsuccessful.
President Donald Trump’s massive pressure, in the form of threats, tariffs, and economic sanctions on judges, failed to save his ally and prevent him from being held accountable for his attempt to subvert the constitutional order. Brazilian institutions have shown tremendous resilience in the face of threats and attacks launched by the most powerful politician in the world. “This is a shame,” the American responded on Saturday when he learned from reporters. Trump the tropics He was taken to the police station because the judge suspected that he wanted to seek refuge in the United States Embassy.
The generals who were convicted with Bolsonaro for planning a coup plot against Lula are already imprisoned, in their case in military facilities. They are the first high-ranking soldiers to be convicted and imprisoned in Brazil’s history, which is marked by successful and unsuccessful riots. Among the other convicts was a police commissioner who ran espionage operations while he was a deputy. He fled weeks ago to the United States, to Miami.
On the other hand, imprisonment of the president is more common. Bolsonaro is the third in this democratic phase, after Lula, whose sentence was cancelled, and Fernando Collor de Mello, who has been serving his sentence at home for a few months.
The ruling against Bolsonaro, adopted by a 4-1 majority, found him guilty of five crimes: attempted coup, attempted democratic abolition of the rule of law, leadership of a criminal organization, and damage to public property and protected heritage.
The Attorney General’s Office confirmed that the plot led by Bolsonaro in 2022 to remain in power after losing the elections to Lula failed due to the opposition of two of the three members of the armed forces leadership.
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