Brazilian Supreme Court upholds Bolsonaro’s jailing after ankle monitor tampering

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil’s Supreme Court upheld Monday former President Jair Bolsonaro’s incarceration after he admitted to trying to break his ankle monitor this weekend while under house arrest. A justice saw the action as an attempt to escape and avoid a 27-year prison sentence for leading a coup attempt.

Bolsonaro, 70, was arrested and kept in a cell at the country’s federal police headquarters in the capital, Brasilia, early Saturday.

A four-member panel of the court unanimously ruled that Bolsonaro should remain under preemptive arrest.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who issued the arrest warrant on Saturday, considered Bolsonaro to be a flight risk. The former president is set to begin serving his 27-year jail sentence for attempting a coup to remain in office after his 2022 election defeat to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

De Moraes’ decision was approved by his peers Flávio Dino, Cristiano Zanin and Carmen Lúcia in an online session of the court.

Bolsonaro told an assistant judge on Sunday that a change in his medication caused him to have a nervous breakdown and hallucinations, which led him to try and break his ankle monitor. His doctors and lawyers repeated his claims while talking to reporters.

However, De Moraes wrote in his decision that “Bolsonaro … confessed he had broken the ankle monitoring in a serious foul play, repeated non-compliance with precautionary measures (that allowed him to stay in house arrest) and evident disrespect to the court.”

The judge was informed that the far-right leader’s ankle monitor was tampered with at 12:08 a.m. local time on Saturday. The arrest order came hours later.

Bolsonaro has been under house arrest since August. Supporters and detractors of the former president have taken to the streets in several Brazilian cities since the news broke on Saturday.