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Jair Bolsonaro has been arrested after authorities found he posed a definite escape threat while under house arrest.

The former head of state was found guilty of orchestrating a military coup in September and handed more than over two decades in jail, but he remained under home detention pending court reviews.

Top Judicial Official the presiding justice said the decision to arrest the septuagenarian politician was a precautionary step after recent developments were revealed.

This involved attempting to break his tracking device and a summons to a public vigil that could enable a potential flight.

Court Filing Details Escape Concerns

In a paperwork permitting the custody, the judge said intelligence from the unit overseeing Bolsonaro's house arrest suggested the former leader's "intention to break the surveillance device to guarantee victory in his getaway".

This, it said, would be "facilitated by the disorder caused by the gathering called by his child.

His offspring, his son Flávio, who works as a legislator, called for a assembly of his supporters near Bolsonaro's home to take place on Saturday evening.

His son wrote on digital networks on Friday: Do you plan to struggle for your homeland, or see it all from your phone there on your couch? I urge you to fight with us."

He said the vigil would be so backers could "pray for his physical condition and for the reestablishment of democratic governance in our country."

Foreign Shelter Risks

Part of the magistrate's ruling was the potential of Bolsonaro's "relocation to embassies near the dwelling, considering that the investigations revealed a record of arranging to seek refuge through a consular facility", a declaration said.

The court filing underscores that the US embassy in the capital, Brasilia, is positioned around 8 miles from Bolsonaro's home.

International Reactions

Bolsonaro's legal woes have provoked anger from fellow conservative nationalist United States President Donald Trump, causing him to enact a half-rate duty on Brazilian product imports.

The former president is being held in a federal law enforcement building in the capital and will experience a custody hearing on the next day.

Latest Court Petitions

It was only on the previous day that the his legal team asked the High Court to allow him to serve his whole jail sentence under house arrest, with electronic monitoring.

They also requested that Bolsonaro be allowed to exit his dwelling for healthcare, saying he required ongoing care for lung conditions and other illnesses.

Context of Sentencing

He was found guilty of leading a plot aimed at maintaining his control after he failed to win the national vote to his ideological adversary, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Supreme Court justices said that he was aware of a plan which encompassed plans to kill his opponent and his running partner, Geraldo Alckmin, and to arrest and execute Alexandre de Moraes - the High Court judge who has been managing the former president's case.

The scheme was stopped because it didn't receive the endorsement of the army and air force commanders. The current president was took office without incident on the first day of 2023.

But a following week, on the eighth of January, many his followers stormed and vandalised government buildings in the federal district, Brasília.

The police stepped in and around fifteen hundred individuals were detained.

The judges found that the demonstrators had been encouraged by him whose scheme, they said, was for the country's army to intervene, reestablish control and reinstate his authority.

At the period, his attorneys called the over 27-year sentence unreasonably severe".

He was also banned from campaigning for office until the year 2060 - a decade minus two years after the conclusion of his imprisonment.

The ex-leader called the court case a "witch hunt and said it was aimed at blocking him participating in the 2026 presidential election.