Brasília: Brazil’s Supreme Court has ordered former president Jair Bolsonaro to begin serving his 27-year and three-month prison sentence after judges ruled that all avenues for appeal had been exhausted.
The decision by Justice Alexandre de Moraes, marks the most consequential legal blow yet against the right-wing leader, who was convicted of orchestrating a conspiracy to overturn the 2022 election after losing to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Bolsonaro, 70, will serve his term in a federal police facility in Brasília, where he has been held after being deemed a flight risk. During a court hearing, Bolsonaro admitted attempting to tamper with his ankle monitor using a soldering iron before coming to his senses, attributing the act to ‘medicine-induced paranoia.’
Justice Moraes also ordered that Bolsonaro receive full-time medical care, following warnings from his medical team about deteriorating health conditions.
In their earlier ruling in September, Supreme Court justices concluded that Bolsonaro was aware of an alleged plot to assassinate President Lula, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, and to arrest and execute Justice Moraes himself. The wider conspiracy collapsed after military commanders refused to support the plan, allowing Lula to be sworn in peacefully on January 1, 2023.
However, days later, on January 8, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace. Judges determined that the riots were incited by Bolsonaro in an effort to push the military to intervene and reinstate him to power. He has also been barred from holding public office until 2060.
Bolsonaro has dismissed the case as a political ‘witch hunt’ aimed at blocking his ambitions for the 2026 presidential election.
Justice Moraes also ordered immediate imprisonment for other convicted co-conspirators, including former Institutional Security Minister Gen Augusto Heleno and former Defence Minister Gen Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira.
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