Brasília (EFE).– Former President Jair Bolsonaro was taken into preventive custody on Saturday after Brazil’s Supreme Court issued an arrest order.
Bolsonaro had been under house arrest following his conviction for attempting a coup d’état.
Policemen went to Bolsonaro’s residence in Brasília and took the 70-year-old former leader into custody, transferring him to Federal Police facilities.
According to Grupo Globo, the Supreme Court issued the preventive detention order to “ensure public order.”
In a short statement, the Federal Police confirmed that it executed a preventive arrest order in Brasília on Saturday “in accordance with a decision by the Supreme Court,” without naming anyone.
The measure comes one day after Bolsonaro’s lawyers asked the court to allow him to serve the 27-year prison sentence he received for attempted coup d’état under house arrest for health reasons.
Bolsonaro was convicted on Sep. 11 by the First Chamber of the Supreme Court for trying to “perpetuate” himself in power with the support of former ministers and military commanders after losing the 2022 election to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
He had been under house arrest since Aug. 4 for violating precautionary measures related to the case.
According to local media outlets, Saturday’s preventive detention does not mark the start of the sentence’s execution, which was expected in the coming weeks once the court ruled on initial appeals.
As part of the same case, the Supreme Court also ordered the preventive detention of lawmaker Alexandre Ramagem, a Bolsonaro ally who was convicted in the coup trial and is believed to have fled to the United States via Venezuela or French Guiana after leaving Brazil through the border state of Roraima.
Ramagem, a former director of Brazil’s Intelligence Agency, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for criminal organization, coup d’état and violent abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law. EFE
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