Brazil’s ex-president Bolsonaro arrested to prevent ‘attempted escape,’ court says

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was arrested on Saturday by police to prevent a possible “attempted escape,” according to Brazil’s Supreme Court, days before he was due to begin a prison sentence for leading a coup attempt.

Bolsonaro was arrested at his home in Brasília and taken into police custody. In a statement, Federal Police said it executed a preventive arrest warrant that had been requested by the police themselves and authorized by the Supreme Court, CNN affiliate CNN Brasil reported.

Sources told CNN Brasil that a vigil organized by Bolsonaro’s oldest son, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, in front of the complex of residential buildings where the former president lives triggered the request for preventive detention.

Bolsonaro’s lawyers vowed to appeal the arrest and dismissed the claim that the former president was attempting to escape.

Brazil’s Supreme Court said Saturday it had received information about the “summoning of supporters” to the vigil, which indicated a “high possibility of an attempted escape,” adding that there was a violation of Bolsonaro’s electronic monitoring equipment in the early hours of the morning.

“The information confirms the convict’s intention to break the electronic ankle bracelet in order to ensure the success of his escape, facilitated by the confusion caused by the demonstration,” the court said.

Flávio Bolsonaro described the vigil, initially planned for Saturday evening local time, as an opportunity to pray for his father following recent reports of ill health and “for the return of democracy in our country.”

“Are you going to fight for your country or just watch everything on your phone on your couch at home?” he asked his followers in a social media video.

Later on Saturday, the Supreme Court released a video, which it says shows Bolsonaro admitting to tampering with his ankle monitor with a soldering iron.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Bolsonaro’s defense team to explain the ankle monitor tampering within 24 hours, according to an order released by the court on Saturday alongside the video.

In the video, a penal official examines the partially melted casing and questions Bolsonaro about it. “Did you use anything to burn this here?” asks Rita Gaio, deputy director of Brazil’s Secretariat of Penitentiary Administration.

“Hot iron,” Bolsonaro is heard replying. He said he used a soldering iron out of “curiosity,” and had not attempted to remove or damage the bracelet fastening the device to his ankle.

Bolsonaro’s attorney told Brazilian media that the issue of the former president’s ankle monitor is beside the point, arguing that Bolsonaro would not have been able to escape his home since he was under armed guard.

Video from CNN affiliate CNN Brasil shows a convoy transporting Bolsonaro after he was arrested by federal police. CNN Brasil

“The issue of the ankle monitor is an attempt to justify the unjustifiable,” Bolsonaro’s lawyer, Paulo Cunha Bueno, told reporters on Saturday. “President Bolsonaro would have no way of leaving his house. He has an armed patrol car 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. So there would be no way for him to leave his home.” CNN has reached out to Bueno for comment.

Flávio Bolsonaro did not immediately respond to a CNN Brasil request for comment. In an earlier statement, Jair Bolsonaro’s lawyers pushed back against the claim that he was attempting to escape, according to CNN Brasil.

“The fact is that the former President was arrested at his home, with an electronic ankle monitor and under police surveillance,” his lawyers said in a statement. “Furthermore, Jair Bolsonaro’s health is delicate and his imprisonment may put his life at risk.”

The lawyers added that the right to assembly is protected in law, referring to the planned vigil.

Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced earlier this year to 27 years in prison for plotting to remain in power after losing the 2022 election to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and has been under house arrest. Four out of five justices on a Brazilian Supreme Court panel voted to convict Bolsonaro on all five counts in the landmark case.

As well as plotting a coup d’état, Bolsonaro was convicted of taking part in an armed criminal organization, attempting to abolish Brazil’s democratic order by force, committing violent acts against state institutions and damaging protected public property during the storming of government buildings by his supporters on January 8, 2023.

Bolsonaro has long insisted that the trial amounted to a political witch hunt.

Earlier this month, high-ranking military officials and a federal police officer were also sentenced to prison terms after a panel of Brazilian Supreme Court justices found them guilty of attempting a coup and plotting to kill Lula da Silva.

On Saturday, reporters asked US President Donald Trump if he had heard of Bolsonaro’s arrest. Trump, a Bolsonaro ally who raised tariffs on Brazil to 50% as punishment for the former president’s trial, said that he had not heard, but that it was “too bad.”

Trump recently backtracked and carved out tariff exceptions for some of Brazil’s biggest exports, namely coffee and beef.

CNN’s Julia Vargas Jones and Michael Rios contributed reporting.

This story has been updated with additional details.