Bolsonaro lawyers seek house arrest for coup plot sentence

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By Luciana Magalhaes

SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Lawyers for former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro asked Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes to allow him to serve his 27-year sentence under house arrest, citing health concerns, a document seen by Reuters on Friday showed.

They said the 70-year-old former president’s recurring intestinal issues stemming from a 2018 stabbing while campaigning, would make incarceration life threatening.

“It is certain that keeping the petitioner in a prison environment would pose a concrete and immediate risk to his physical integrity and even his life,” the document said, asking for house arrest on humanitarian grounds.

Bolsonaro was sentenced by a five-judge panel of Brazil’s Supreme Court in September to 27 years and three months in prison for plotting a coup to remain in power after losing the 2022 election to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The former right-wing leader has already been under house arrest for violating precautionary measures in a separate case, in which he allegedly courted U.S. interference to halt criminal proceedings against him.

Court sources said Bolsonaro’s arrest appeared imminent after the Supreme Court panel earlier this month unanimously rejected an appeal filed by the former president’s legal team.

His lawyers said they would file a fresh appeal, but argued that if it is also rejected, Bolsonaro should begin serving his sentence under house arrest once all appeals are exhausted.

They noted that earlier this year the top court let 76-year-old former President Fernando Collor de Mello, who was sentenced to almost nine years in prison on corruption and money laundering charges, serve house arrest due to his age and health issues, including Parkinson’s disease.

Recent tests that Bolsonaro has undergone show that “a serious or sudden illness is not a question of ‘if,’ but of ‘when,'” his legal team said.

One of Bolsonaro’s sons, Carlos, said on Friday that the former president was facing severe hiccups and vomiting constantly. “I’ve never seen him like this,” he wrote on X.

Bolsonaro, who governed Brazil between 2019 and 2022, was convicted for five crimes, including participating in an armed criminal organization, attempting to violently abolish democracy, and organizing a coup.

On Friday, the former president made a brief appearance in the doorway of his house while receiving a visit from federal lawmaker Nikolas Ferreira.

(Reporting by Luciana Magalhaes and Fernando Cardoso; Writing by Gabriel Araujo and Diane Craft)