Bolsonaro house arrest bid fails: Brazil top court rejects plea; health concerns dismissed

Brazil’s Supreme Court on Thursday turned down former president Jair Bolsonaro’s plea to serve his prison term under house arrest, according to a court ruling.

Bolsonaro’s legal team had filed the request a day earlier, arguing that the 70-year-old should be allowed to remain at home on health grounds while serving his 27-year sentence for plotting a coup.




The former president has been in hospital for over a week following surgery for a groin hernia. He later underwent another procedure to address recurring bouts of hiccups, his lawyers said.

The court, however, rejected the request, ruling that there were no sufficient grounds to grant him house arrest.

Bolsonaro was taken into custody in November last year, days before he was expected to begin serving a 27-year prison sentence for leading an attempted coup in 2022, according to officials and his legal team. The federal police acted on a request from Brazil’s Supreme Court, though neither institution provided further details.

Bolsonaro was detained around 6 am and moved from his residence in the upscale Jardim Botanico neighbourhood of Brasilia to the federal police headquarters, his aide Andriely Cirino told the agency. Local media had earlier reported that the 70-year-old leader, having exhausted all appeals, was scheduled to start his sentence next week.

The arrest marks an escalation from his house arrest status, imposed in August.

His lawyer Celso Vilardi told AFP, "He has been imprisoned, but I don't know why," adding that the defence had argued for him to serve the sentence at home due to health concerns.

Bolsonaro, who governed Brazil from 2019 to 2022, has maintained that the charges related to the 2022 coup attempt are politically motivated. The federal police’s brief statement announcing the operation did not name him but confirmed that the detention followed a Supreme Court directive.