BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil's Supreme Court on Monday upheld former President Jair Bolsonaro's incarceration after he admitted to trying to break his ankle monitor while under house arrest. A justice saw the action as an attempt to escape and avoid a 27-year prison sentence for leading a coup attempt.
Bolsonaro, 70, was arrested and kept in a cell at the country’s federal police headquarters in the capital, Brasilia, early Saturday.
A four-member panel of the court unanimously ruled that Bolsonaro should remain under preemptive arrest.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who issued the arrest warrant on Saturday, considered Bolsonaro to be a flight risk. The former president is set to begin serving his 27-year prison sentence for attempting a coup to remain in office after his 2022 election defeat to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
De Moraes' decision was approved by his peers Flávio Dino, Cristiano Zanin and Carmen Lúcia in an online session of the court.
Bolsonaro told an assistant judge on Sunday that a change in his medication caused him to have a nervous breakdown and hallucinations, which led him to try and break his ankle monitor. His doctors and lawyers repeated his claims while talking to reporters.
However, De Moraes wrote in his decision that “Bolsonaro ... confessed he had broken the ankle monitoring in a serious foul play, repeated non-compliance with precautionary measures (that allowed him to stay in house arrest) and evident disrespect to the court.”
The judge was informed that the far-right leader’s ankle monitor was tampered with at 12:08 a.m. local time on Saturday. The arrest order came hours later.
Bolsonaro has been under house arrest since August. Supporters and detractors of the former president have taken to the streets in several Brazilian cities since the news broke on Saturday.
On a rainy Monday in Brasilia, few demonstrators appeared in front of the federal police headquarters. As some drove by, they honked, either shouting insults at Bolsonaro or showing support for Lula.
As lawmakers start coming back to the city for what is likely to be a busy and tense week, one of the sons of the former president, Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, told journalists he will keep pushing for an amnesty bill for his father — a move that has lost steam over the last few months.
“We will do this all over 2026,” said Flávio Bolsonaro, who is also a presidential hopeful in next year's presidential election. Other right-leaning politicians would rather have a candidate outside of the family, such as Sao Paulo Gov. Tarcisio de Freitas.
Bolsonaro's lawyers can file other appeals until the end of Monday, but that does not rule out the Supreme Court from ordering the former president to start serving his prison sentence as early as Tuesday if de Moraes decides so.
De Moraes has not hinted whether he will make that decision so quickly, though.
Supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro protest outside the federal police headquarters, where he is being held, in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
