The Supreme Court of Brazil rejected this Thursday a new request for house arrest on humanitarian grounds presented by the lawyers of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year and 3-month prison sentence for sedition in a police facility in Brasilia. Following the new decision by Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the case's instructor at the Federal Supreme Court, Bolsonaro will have to return to his cell this same Thursday upon receiving his medical discharge from the hospital where he has been admitted since December 24. The army reserve captain has undergone four surgeries in recent days, and his lawyers requested that, for humanitarian and health reasons, he be granted the benefit of house arrest. At a press conference on Wednesday, the doctors of the Brazilian far-right leader stated that, although they have not completely solved the hiccups crises affecting him, the former president's health is stable and he could leave the hospital this Thursday. The forecast is that once he receives medical discharge, Bolsonaro will be transferred under escort to the headquarters of the Federal Police Superintendency in Brasilia, where he has been serving his sentence since November. In the ruling that denied the new appeal, Moraes assured that the defense did not present «justifying facts that could modify the denial of a request for humanitarian house arrest issued on December 19». According to the magistrate, in the case of the former head of state, the legal requirements for granting house arrest are not met, especially in view of the convict's repeated violations of the precautionary measures imposed on him while he was provisionally serving his sentence at his residence. Moraes recalled that Bolsonaro destroyed the electronic ankle bracelet used to monitor his movements in an apparent escape attempt. «It is also emphasized that, contrary to what the defense alleged, Bolsonaro's health condition has not worsened and, on the contrary, his clinical condition shows improvement in the problems he was complaining about after undergoing new elective surgeries, as indicated in the report of his own doctors», the ruling states. Moraes added that he attended to all the medical care requests requested by the defense, such as the possibility for him to receive doctors in his cell at any time without prior judicial authorization and the installation of a 24-hour emergency service in the police building. According to his doctors, both the surgery to correct two inguinal hernias to which he was subjected on December 25, and the three different operations for the anesthetic blockage of the bilateral phrenic nerves of the diaphragm in order to control his recurrent hiccups crises, were carried out as scheduled during the eight days of hospitalization. The former president suffered some spikes in hypertension in recent days that were treated with medication, and at his request, he is being supplied with antidepressants. Bolsonaro was convicted in September by the Supreme Court for «leading» a plot to «perpetuate himself in power» after losing the 2022 presidential elections to the current ruler, the progressive Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. His lawyers have repeatedly requested that he be granted house arrest on humanitarian grounds due to his delicate state of health, but, to date, the Supreme Court has denied all appeals.
