Brazil’s Bolsonaro leaves hospital and returns to jail in capital Brasilia

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro left a hospital in capital Brasilia on Thursday, a week after he underwent a double hernia surgery. A car took the embattled ex-leader back to the federal police headquarters where he is serving his 27-year prison sentence for leading a coup d’etat aimed at keeping him in office.

Hospital DF Star confirmed Bolsonaro was released after some other minor medical procedures after the double hernia surgery that was completed without complications.

Brazil’s Supreme Court approved the release of the former president, who governed from 2019 to 2022, for the surgery.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who sentenced Bolsonaro to prison, denied the former president’s request for house arrest after he leaves the hospital.

Bolsonaro has undergone several other medical procedures since he was stabbed in the abdomen during a campaign rally in 2018.

Bolsonaro has no contact with the few other inmates at the federal police headquarters in Brasilia, where he is held and where his 12-square-meter (around 130-square-foot) room has a bed, a private bathroom, air conditioning, a television and a desk.

In December, Bolsonaro shook Brazilian politics again by appointing his eldest son, Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, to become his political party’s presidential candidate in next year’s election, challenging incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Neither Flávio Bolsonaro nor former first-lady Michelle Bolsonaro made comments about the former leader returning to prison after his hospitalization.

Michelle Bolsonaro said in her social media channels that “there is a Brazil of good people which loves you and prays for you.”

“We will beat the bad days,” she wrote.

Bolsonaro and several of his allies were convicted in September by a panel of Supreme Court justices of attempting to overthrow Brazil’s democratic system following his 2022 election defeat.

The plot included plans to kill Lula, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and de Moraes. There was also a plan to encourage an insurrection in early 2023.

Bolsonaro was also convicted on charges that include leading an armed criminal organization and attempting the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law. He has denied any wrongdoing.

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