Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro begins serving 27-year prison sentence

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro started on Tuesday to serve his 27-year prison sentence for leading a coup attempt designed to keep him in office after losing the 2022 presidential elections, a move that many in the South American nation doubted would ever take place.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who has overseen the case, ruled Bolsonaro will remain at the same federal police headquarters where he has been since he was preemptively arrested on Saturday for being considered a flight risk.

Brazil’s criminal law also could have allowed the 70-year-old to be transferred to a local penitentiary or to a prison room in a military facility in capital Brasilia.

The Supreme Court justice considered that Bolsonaro’s defense had exhausted all appeals of his conviction on Monday. His lawyers wanted him to be on house arrest due to his poor health.

The embattled leader had been under house arrest since August when de Moraes first mentioned he could escape. The far-right leader said “hallucinations” had led him to break his ankle monitoring with a welder on Saturday, a claim that de Moraes dismissed in his preemptive arrest order.

The former president and several of his allies were convicted by a panel of Supreme Court justices for attempted to overthrow Brazil’s democracy following his 2022 election defeat.

The plot included plans to kill President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and Justice de Moraes. The plan also involved egging on an insurrection in early 2023.

The former president was also found guilty of charges including leading an armed criminal organization and of attempting the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law.

Bolsonaro has always denied wrongdoing.

Two others convicted, Augusto Heleno and Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, both Army generals, were sent the military facility in Brasilia to start serving their sentences. Former justice minister Anderson Torres is now imprisoned at the Papuda penitentiary, also in Brazil’s capital.

Adm. Almir Garnier will serve his term at Navy facilities in Brasilia.

Bolsonaro’s running mate and former Defense Minister Walter Braga Netto, another army general, will remain in prison at military facilities in Rio de Janeiro.

De Moraes also confirmed that lawmaker and former head of Brazil’s intelligence agency Alexandre Ramagem is on the loose in the United States.

Bolsonaro remains a key figure in Brazilian politics, despite being ineligible to run again at least until 2030 after a separate ruling by Brazil’s top electoral court. Polls show he would be a competitive candidate in next year’s vote if allowed to run.

The former president is an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has called the trial of the former Brazilian leader a “witch hunt.” Bolsonaro was mentioned in a July order by the U.S. administration to raise tariffs on several Brazilian exports by 50% tariffs.

Relations between the two countries have improved since, with Lula and Trump meeting in Malaysia at the ASEAN summit in October. Most of those higher tariffs have been dropped.

As well as the tariffs, the U.S. also imposed sanctions on de Moraes and other Brazilian officials.