Brazil, Brasilia — Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was taken into preventive custody on Saturday in Brasilia, after several months under house arrest. Bolsonaro had been convicted in September for conspiring to prevent leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from taking office after losing the 2022 elections. The former leader of Brazil's right and far-right had been under house arrest since August, electronically monitored at his home in a luxury condominium in the capital. The STF had rejected a mid-November appeal against his conviction, which stipulated that it must be served in 'closed regime' (prison). Flavio Bolsonaro claimed that a 'faction' of Comando Vermelho was trained in Ukraine. Clemency request for health reasons. The detention occurred despite Bolsonaro's lawyers having requested on Friday that the court allow their client to serve his sentence at home 'for humanitarian reasons' due to his delicate health conditions. The defense argued that changing the house arrest represents a 'life risk' for Bolsonaro, who suffers from permanent sequelae from the stab wound he received in the abdomen in 2018. The arrest was carried out by the Federal Police in compliance with a decision from the Supreme Federal Court (STF). According to the Argentine News Agency, the measure was a preventive detention and not the execution of his 27-year prison sentence. The lawyers cited multiple surgeries, reflux episodes, and 'uncontrollable hiccups' that have caused him shortness of breath, as well as a recent skin cancer diagnosis.
