The former Brazilian president taken into custody after being declared a escape threat
The former Brazilian leader has been detained after authorities concluded he posed a concrete flight risk while under home confinement.
The ex-president was found guilty of planning a armed takeover in last fall and handed more than 27 years in incarceration, but he remained under home detention pending legal challenges.
Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes said the move to detain the septuagenarian politician was a precautionary step after fresh information emerged.
This involved trying to remove his ankle monitor and a call for a demonstration that could facilitate a possible escape.
Legal Document Reveals Escape Concerns
In a paperwork permitting the custody, Justice Moraes said information from the centre monitoring his home detention suggested the former leader's "intention to break the electronic ankle bracelet to secure accomplishment in his flight.
This, it said, would be "facilitated by the confusion caused by the demonstration called by his child.
His child, Flávio, who works as a congressional representative, called for a gathering of his followers near the former president's residence to take place on Saturday evening.
His son wrote on social media on the previous day: Will you battle for your nation, or watch it all from your mobile device there on your settee? I urge you to battle with us."
He said the demonstration would be so supporters could seek divine intervention for his health and for the restoration of democratic rule in our nation."
Embassy Asylum Concerns
Part of Justice Moraes's ruling was the chance of Bolsonaro's transfer to foreign missions near the dwelling, considering that the investigations revealed a history of organizing to seek refuge through a consular facility", a declaration said.
The legal document emphasizes that the United States embassy in the capital, Brasilia, is positioned around 13km from Bolsonaro's home.
Global Responses
Bolsonaro's legal woes have provoked anger from fellow conservative nationalist American leader Donald Trump, causing him to impose a fifty percent tax on goods coming from Brazil.
The former president is being detained in a federal law enforcement building in the capital and will undergo a custody hearing on the next day.
Latest Court Petitions
It was only on Friday that the his legal team asked the Supreme Court to authorize him to complete his entire prison term under house arrest, with electronic monitoring.
They also asked that he be authorized to depart his residence for medical treatment, saying he needed regular treatment for pulmonary infections and other ailments.
Context of Sentencing
He was convicted of heading a plot aimed at maintaining his control after he lost the presidential race to his ideological adversary, President Lula.
High Court judges said that he had knowledge of a scheme which included plans to assassinate Lula and his vice-presidential running mate, Alckmin, and to arrest and execute Justice Moraes - the High Court judge who has been managing Bolsonaro's trial.
The plot was thwarted because it didn't receive the backing of the army and air force commanders. Lula was inaugurated without incident on the first day of 2023.
But a following week, on 8 January, many Bolsonaro supporters attacked and damaged public facilities in the federal district, the capital city.
The security forces took action and around 1,500 people were taken into custody.
The judges found that the protesters had been incited by the former president whose plan, they said, was for the Brazilian military to take action, reestablish control and return him to office.
At the moment, Bolsonaro's lawyers called the decades-long sentence unreasonably severe".
He was also banned from campaigning for office until twenty-sixty - a decade minus two years after the conclusion of his imprisonment.
The ex-leader called the legal proceedings a "witch hunt and said it was aimed at blocking him participating in the next presidential race.