Brazil’s Bolsonaro to start serving 27-year prison sentence over coup plot

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro will start serving his prison sentence of 27 years and three months for plotting a coup after losing the last election, the Supreme Court announced Tuesday.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the judge in the case, ruled that Bolsonaro will remain at the Federal Police complex in the capital Brasilia, where he has been detained since Saturday, rejecting a potential transfer to a maximum-security or military prison.

Moraes decided that in view of the former president's age and fragile health, he should remain at the main police headquarters. Bolsonaro, 70, was transferred there on Saturday after trying to open his ankle monitor with a soldering iron.

He told an assistant judge on Sunday that a change in his medication for chronic hiccups caused him to have a nervous breakdown and hallucinations, which led him to try and break the electronic ankle bracelet.

Since Saturday, Bolsonaro has been held in a 12-square-meter (129-square-foot) room at the police headquarters. He has received visits from his wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, and two of his sons.

Moraes denied the defense's request to allow Bolsonaro to serve his sentence under house arrest. He justified this by citing the attempted tampering with the ankle monitor, which he interpreted as an attempt by the former president to flee last weekend.

Bolsonaro was definitively sentenced in September to 27 years and three months in prison for planning and orchestrating a coup following his loss in the 2022 presidential election to current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

According to the Supreme Court ruling, the scheme allegedly included provisions for the assassination of President Lula and Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, though it was ultimately not carried out due to a lack of support from senior military officials.

Bolsonaro had been under house arrest in Brasilia for more than 100 days for violating precautionary measures for allegedly courting US interference to stop criminal proceedings against him.