Brazil’s Bolsonaro to start serving 27-year prison sentence for coup plot

Audio By Carbonatix

Enlarge

BRASILIA (Reuters) -Brazil’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered former President Jair Bolsonaro to begin a prison sentence of more than 27 years for plotting a coup in 2022, according to a court document.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Bolsonaro incarcerated at Brazil’s Federal Police headquarters in Brasilia, where he has been detained since Saturday after authorities said he removed his ankle monitor with a soldering iron.

Bolsonaro was sentenced in September to 27 years and three months in prison for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 presidential election to leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The judge is part of a four-member Supreme Court panel that must still collectively approve his decision.

Earlier on Tuesday, the country’s top court formally concluded Bolsonaro’s coup-plotting case, ruling that all appeals were exhausted and the guilty verdict had become final. It rejected his appeal this month.

Lawyers for the former president, who will have a custody hearing on Wednesday, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

One of his lawyers, Celso Vilardi, told local newspaper Folha de S. Paulo that the court was premature in finalizing the case and should have allowed more time for appeals.

Before his detention on Saturday, Bolsonaro spent more than 100 days under house arrest in Brasilia in a separate case over allegations he asked ally U.S. President Donald Trump to disrupt prosecution against him.

In a custody hearing on Sunday, Bolsonaro denied any intent to escape, saying he thought a tracking device was concealed in the ankle monitor due to the effects of anticonvulsant drugs prescribed by different doctors.

(Reporting by Luciana Magalhaes and Ricardo Brito in Brasilia; Writing by Andre Romani; Editing by Brendan O’Boyle, Alistair Bell and Cynthia Osterman)