DEMOCRACY

Bolsonaro arrested after trying to remove ankle monitor

Bolsonaro supporters assemble outside the Federal Police building in Brasília, where the former president has been detained since Saturday morning. Photo: Valter Campanato/EBC

Jair Bolsonaro’s latest brush with the law began not with a mass rally or an incendiary speech, but with a soldering iron and a prayer vigil.

On Saturday morning, federal marshals arrived at the former president’s upscale Brasília condominium and placed him in preventive custody. Bolsonaro had been under house arrest since August, wearing an electronic ankle monitor after investigators deemed him a flight risk as the Supreme Court prepared to try him on accusations that he had orchestrated a coup attempt following the 2022 election. 

In September, a panel of the court sentenced him to more than 27 years in prison. The case is now in the final stages of appeal, meaning his sentence is close to being enforced.

Saturday’s arrest order, issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, revoked…

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