Bolsonaro was put behind bars. The politician tried to remove the electronic bracelet

Brazil's Supreme Court unanimously decided on Monday to temporarily arrest former president Jair Bolsonaro. According to the judges, there is a risk of escape of the former head of state from 2019-2022, who was under house arrest until Saturday.

The ruling explained that Bolsonaro, who was taken into custody in Brasilia, the country's capital, on Saturday, tried to remove the electronic device monitoring his whereabouts. This means that the conservative politician's current stay under house arrest no longer guarantees that his escape will be prevented.

In his justification, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes stated that Bolsonaro “repeatedly failed to comply with various preventive measures,” which justified the need to change his house arrest to temporary imprisonment.

Bolsonaro admitted that he tried to open the electronic bracelet monitoring his whereabouts with a heated soldering iron. He explained that he did it as a result of hallucinations induced by taking drugs.

Bolsonaro, 70, was sentenced in September to 27 years and three months in prison for leading a group that, with the participation of his supporters, carried out an attack on the main state offices in Brasilia on January 8, 2023, which was supposed to be an attempted coup. The riots broke out shortly after Bolsonaro's rival, current president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, won the 2022 presidential election by a small majority. (PAP)

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