The district government of Brasília has asked the Supreme Court to order a medical evaluation of former President Jair Bolsonaro to determine whether his health allows him to serve his 27-year prison sentence at the Papuda Penitentiary Complex, the capital’s largest and most notorious detention facility.
The request was signed by Wenderson Souza e Teles, Brasília’s secretary of prisons, and sent ahead of the Supreme Court’s review of Bolsonaro’s appeal against his conviction for orchestrating a coup d’état following his electoral defeat at the 2022 elections. Teles cites Bolsonaro’s “abdominal surgeries” in recent months and notes that he required emergency transport to a private hospital on September 16, where he spent the night under observation.
Bolsonaro has faced chronic health problems stemming from an abdominal stab wound he suffered during the 2018 presidential campaign. He has undergone at least six surgeries to repair damage to his digestive system as a result of that attack. The most recent of these procedures (a major abdominal surgery) took place this April.
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