SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro was under arrest on Saturday over suspicion he was plotting to avoid starting a 27-year prison sentence for leading a coup attempt.
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversaw the case on Bolsonaro’s attempt to keep the presidency after his defeat to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2022, ordered the preemptive arrest after saying the far-right leader’s ankle monitor was violated at 0:08 a.m. on Saturday.
Bolsonaro, 70, who had been under house arrest, was ordered to wear the device after being deemed a flight risk.
The former president, who is an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, was taken to the headquarters of the country’s federal police in the capital, Brasilia, from his home.
Bolsonaro’s aide Andriely Cirino confirmed to The Associated Press that the arrest took place around 6 a.m. on Saturday.
The Supreme Court panel hearing Bolsonaro’s case will vote on de Moraes’ order in an extraordinary session Monday. The same panel convicted him to jail by 4 votes to 1 in September.
The preemptive arrest is a dramatic and unexpected twist in the final stage of a long and divisive criminal trial. De Moraes claimed the embattled leader could escape, as some of his allies did, just days before he was set to begin his prison term. The judge cited a video posted by Bolsonaro’s son urging supporters to protest on Saturday outside the property where his father had been staying.
“(The) information shows the intent of the convict to break the ankle monitoring to assure his escape is successful, which would be made easier by the confusion that would be caused by a demonstration organized by his son,” de Moraes said.
The judge said there was a chance of Bolsonaro fleeing to the United States embassy in Brasilia. The Supreme Court justice also mentioned other defendants in the coup case and political allies of the former president leaving Brazil to avoid jail.
“He is located about 13 kilometers (8 miles) away from where the United States of America embassy lies, in a distance that can be covered in a 15-minute drive,” said de Moraes, who has been sanctioned by the Trump administration.
Brazil's federal police found in August messages that linked Bolsonaro to a political asylum request to Argentina, where an ally of his, Javier Milei, is president.
‘Pathetic illegal initiatives’
Local media reported that Bolsonaro, who was Brazil’s president from 2019 to 2022 and remains a key political player, was expected to begin serving his sentence sometime next week after all appeals of his conviction are exhausted.
De Moraes said Bolsonaro’s arrest “should be made with all respect to the dignity of former President Jair Messias Bolsonaro, without the use of handcuffs and without any media exposition.”
The former president was taken from his house in a gated community in the upscale Jardim Botanico neighborhood to the federal police headquarters, Cirino said.
De Moraes mentioned in his ruling a video by Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, one of the former president's sons, in which he encouraged supporters to take to the streets. A vigil outside Bolsonaro's residence was scheduled for later on Saturday.
No protesters were outside the federal police headquarters in Brasilia as of Saturday morning. Detractors of the former president were celebrating online and scheduling parties later on the day in major Brazilian cities, though.
“The video shot by Flávio Bolsonaro stimulates the disrespect to the constitutional text, to the judicial decision and to (democratic) institutions, showing there's no limits for the criminal organization in its attempt to create chaos and conflict in this country, in a total disrespect to democracy,” de Moraes wrote in his ruling.
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“Brazil's democracy has reached sufficient maturity to steer away and prosecute pathetic illegal initiatives to defend the criminal organization that is responsible for a coup d'etat attempt in Brazil,” he added.
Bolsonaro and several of his allies were convicted by a panel of Supreme Court justices for attempting to overthrow Brazil’s democracy following his 2022 election defeat. Prosecutors said the coup plot included plans to kill Lula, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and de Moraes.
Bolsonaro was also found guilty on charges of leading an armed criminal organization and attempting the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law. He denies any wrongdoing.
Bolsonaro's allies vow to defend him
Fabio Wajngarten, Bolsonaro’s former press adviser and lawyer, said the arrest of the former president was “a terrible stain on the institutions.”
Speaking in a video posted on X, Wajngarten added: “It’s a shame. I hope this is reviewed soon.” He claimed Bolsonaro’s ankle monitoring device was working perfectly as of Saturday morning.
“How could something that was broken, violated, be functioning normally nine hours later?” he wrote. “The president had dinner — a soup — yesterday with four brothers and brothers-in-law, took medication for hiccups, felt drowsy and laid down around 10 p.m. None of his sons were at the house.”
Sóstenes Cavalcante, Bolsonaro's party whip in the lower house, accused de Moraes of showing “psychopathy at the highest level.”
“We will always stand by your side. Stay strong,” he said in a video shared with the AP. “We will respond appropriately.”
In an Instagram post, Michelle Bolsonaro, the former first lady, vowed Bolsonaro's supporters “will not give up on our nation,” adding: “I believe in God’s justice. Human justice, as we have seen, can’t hold anymore.” She was outside Brasilia when her husband was arrested at home.
'Martyr and impactful popular leader'
Bolsonaro was placed under house arrest in early August, weeks before he was convicted. His lawyers were pleading with Brazil's Supreme Court to keep him at home to serve his sentence, citing his poor health, but Brazilian law requires that all convicts start their sentences in prison.
Creomar de Souza, a political analyst with Dharma Political Risk and Strategy, a political consultancy firm based in Brasilia, said the move by de Moraes will have impact on next year’s presidential election, with Lula seeking reelection and Bolsonaro already barred from running.
“They had the idea of turning the 2026 election into a referendum on Bolsonaro. And for that to happen they needed actions, they needed to build an optics of Bolsonaro as a martyr and an impactful popular leader,” de Souza told the AP. “At the end of the day, this shows the Bolsonaro family they will need to build their own alternative for the 2026 elections.”
Associated Press writer Gabriela Sá Pessoa contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
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