Jair Bolsonaro arrested after being declared a flight risk
Bolsonaro has been taken into custody after authorities concluded he posed a concrete flight risk while under home confinement.
The former head of state was sentenced of plotting a armed takeover in September and given more than 27 years in prison, but he was staying under confinement pending court reviews.
High Court Judge Justice Moraes said the action to imprison the 70-year-old politician was a preventative measure after recent developments emerged.
This involved trying to remove his electronic bracelet and a summons to a public vigil that could "allow for a chance to flee".
Legal Document Reveals Escape Concerns
In a document approving the custody, the judge said data from the facility tracking his home detention suggested the former leader's aim to disable the tracking monitor to secure accomplishment in his flight.
This, it said, would be assisted by the disorder caused by the demonstration called by his offspring.
His son, his son Flávio, who works as a congressional representative, called for a assembly of his backers near the former president's residence to take place on the weekend.
His son wrote on digital networks on the previous day: Will you battle for your country, or observe everything from your phone there on your couch? I call on you to struggle with us."
He said the vigil would be so supporters could seek divine intervention for his physical condition and for the return of democracy in our nation."
Embassy Asylum Concerns
Part of the magistrate's ruling was the chance of Bolsonaro's move to foreign missions near the dwelling, considering that the investigations revealed a record of organizing to ask for protection through a embassy office", a declaration said.
The legal document underscores that the United States embassy in the national capital, Brazil's capital, is situated around 8 miles from Bolsonaro's home.
Global Responses
Bolsonaro's legal woes have provoked anger from fellow right-wing populist US President President Trump, leading him to implement a fifty percent tax on Brazilian product imports.
Bolsonaro is being detained in a national police facility in Brasilia and will have a imprisonment assessment on the next day.
Recent Judicial Appeals
It was only on the previous day that the former president's lawyers asked the High Court to permit him to fulfill his full incarceration period under house arrest, with digital surveillance.
They also requested that Bolsonaro be authorized to depart his residence for healthcare, saying he required frequent medical attention for respiratory ailments and other ailments.
Context of Sentencing
He was convicted of orchestrating a scheme aimed at keeping him in power after he failed to win the national vote to his left-wing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
High Court judges said that he knew of a scheme which encompassed plans to kill the current president and his VP candidate, his vice-presidential candidate, and to detain and kill Alexandre de Moraes - the High Court judge who has been presiding over his judicial proceedings.
The scheme was stopped because it failed to get the support of the army and air force commanders. His successor was took office without problem on January 1st, 2023.
But a following week, on January 8th, thousands of his followers invaded and destroyed public facilities in the federal district, the capital city.
The police took action and around fifteen hundred individuals were taken into custody.
The justices found that the protesters had been provoked by him whose strategy, they said, was for the Brazilian military to intervene, restore order and reinstate his authority.
At the time, his attorneys called the over 27-year sentence extremely harsh.
He was also prohibited from campaigning for office until the year 2060 - a decade minus two years after the end of his sentence.
The former president called the legal proceedings a "witch hunt and said it was designed to prevent him participating in the 2026 national vote.