Bolsonaro To Start Serving 27-Year Prison Sentence Over Coup Plot

Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered former President Jair Bolsonaro to begin serving a prison term for conspiring to remain in power after losing the last election.

Brazil’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered former President Jair Bolsonaro to start serving a 27-year sentence for overseeing a failed plot to hold onto power after losing the country’s last election.

After the nation’s top court rejected an initial appeal by Mr. Bolsonaro’s lawyers challenging his sentence, the court ruled that he will begin serving his sentence at a federal police facility in Brasília, the capital.

The court’s ruling brought to a close a multiyear effort to hold Mr. Bolsonaro accountable for his role in a far-reaching plot to overturn the results of the 2022 election and remain in power following his loss at the polls.

The case became a severe test of Brazil’s young democracy after President Trump tried to help his political ally by imposing punishing tariffs and sanctions in an attempt to pressure Brazil into dropping the case. But Brazilian authorities did not cave and Mr. Trump appears to have moved on.

Mr. Bolsonaro is already in custody at the federal police facility. He was arrested on Saturday after he told the police that he took a soldering iron to the ankle monitor tracking his movements while under house arrest, setting off suspicions that he was trying to flee. Mr. Bolsonaro blamed his medications for causing “hallucinations” and “paranoia” that the device might be used to eavesdrop on him.

Mr. Bolsonaro’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The former president’s defense team had asked the court to allow Mr. Bolsonaro to serve his sentence at home because of health problems linked to complications from a stabbing attack in 2018.

The court rejected the request after he tampered with his ankle monitor. As Mr. Bolsonaro begins serving his sentence, his defense team may try again, submitting medical evidence to support its argument.

In September, Brazil’s Supreme Court convicted Mr. Bolsonaro and seven of his allies of organizing a vast conspiracy to overturn the 2022 elections and assassinate the winner, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, before he took office as president.

Mr. Bolsonaro had been under house arrest since August, watched closely by the police because the Supreme Court justice overseeing the case deemed him a flight risk.

Analysts widely expect Mr. Bolsonaro to remain in prison for a short time before the Supreme Court ultimately allows him to serve out the rest of his sentence at home, though it is not yet clear just how long he may spend behind bars.

Mr. Bolsonaro’s defense team has argued that his poor health, which includes frequent attacks of hiccups and vomiting, “makes his safe stay in a prison environment impossible” because he needs constant medical care.

“He should serve the time he was given,” said Antonio Carlos de Almeida Castro, a veteran Brazilian lawyer who has defended politicians and business moguls. “But given that he appears to be very ill, he may have the right to house arrest.”

This is not the first time a former Brazilian president has faced prison. Mr. Lula, who was in office from 2003 to 2010, was sentenced to more than a decade in prison in 2017 for receiving kickbacks from a construction company, though his conviction was later tossed out and he was freed after serving 580 days in prison.

Another former president, Fernando Collor, who led the country from 1990 to 1992, began serving a nearly nine-year prison sentence for corruption earlier this year, though he was moved to house arrest after just over a week because of his health.

Mr. Bolsonaro’s conviction relied on troves of evidence showing that he and his inner circle had spent months undermining voters’ confidence in Brazil’s elections systems and then, after he narrowly lost to Mr. Lula, attempted to keep him in power.

The plans included dissolving the Supreme Court, annulling the election result and giving the military sweeping powers. Beside planning to assassinate Mr. Lula, prosecutors said the plot also involved planning to kill a Supreme Court justice who had overseen Mr. Bolsonaro’s case.

Mr. Bolsonaro denied the charges and said he had no knowledge of any assassination plot. He claimed that he sought ways within Brazil’s Constitution to correct what he claimed was a stolen election, though a review by Brazil’s military found no evidence of electoral fraud.

After Mr. Lula became president, Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed government buildings in January 2023, a destructive rampage that echoed the U.S. Capitol riot two years earlier.

Even as he was jailed, Mr. Bolsonaro’s allies continued to place their faith in a halting attempt by his political allies to pass a bill in Brazil’s Congress absolving him.

His supporters claim that the case against Mr. Bolsonaro was an attempt to end his political career and keep him out of next year’s presidential elections. Despite his legal troubles, the former president remains a significant force on the Brazilian political right.

Still, Mr. Bolsonaro is ineligible to run in next year’s presidential elections because of a separate ruling by another court. And his conviction and jailing in the coup plot means that he will be permanently barred from running for office under Brazil’s Constitution.

Lis Moriconi contributed research.

Related Content