Brazil's First Chamber of the Supreme Court reached the necessary majority on Monday to uphold the preventive detention order against former President Jair Bolsonaro and keep him imprisoned at the Federal Police headquarters in Brasilia. The measure ratifies the decision made on Saturday by Judge Alexandre de Moraes, who oversaw the case in which the former president was convicted of attempted coup d'état, according to the first votes cast by the court's justices.
The final vote for Bolsonaro's pretrial detention was cast by Cristiano Zanin, president of the First Chamber and former lawyer for Lula da Silva. Zanin argued that"the evidence allows us to conclude that the accused intended to break the democratic rule of law," as stated in his presentation.
The former president's arrest occurred over the weekend, when agents of the Federal Police arrived at 6:00 a.m. at Bolsonaro's residence in Brasilia. The far-right leader was arrested and immediately taken to police headquarters, in accordance with the ruling of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) to"guarantee public order," according to statements reported by the Globo group.
Brazil's Federal Police announced in a statement that they had executed a preventive detention order in accordance with a Supreme Court decision. While the statement did not specify the detainee's name, the action stemmed from Bolsonaro's conviction for the attempted coup that followed the 2022 elections, in which he was defeated by current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Bolsonaro, 70, had been under house arrest since August 4 for violating precautionary measures, after his lawyers unsuccessfully attempted to petition the Supreme Court to allow him to serve his 27-year prison sentence under house arrest for health reasons. On September 11, the Supreme Court's First Chamber decided, by a vote of four to one, to sentence the former president for attempting to perpetuate himself in power with the support of former ministers and military commanders, according to the court's ruling.
In the same case, several former high-ranking officials were convicted, including Alexandre Ramagem, former director of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (sentenced to 16 years), and former ministers such as Almir Garnier, Anderson Torres, Augusto Heleno, Mauro Cid, Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, and Walter Souza Braga Netto, with sentences ranging from 16 to 26 years in prison. Furthermore, the Supreme Court ordered the pretrial detention of Ramagem, who, according to the investigation, allegedly fled Brazil clandestinely to the United States after his conviction.
The sentence against Bolsonaro includes the aggravating circumstance of being the “leader” of the criminal organization, according to the Attorney General's Office, because he allegedly led a plot that began in June 2021, well before the elections. According to the indictment, the conspiracy materialized after Bolsonaro's electoral defeat, through protests and violent acts, and culminated on January 8, 2023, with the attack on the headquarters of the Presidency, the Parliament, and the Supreme Court itself, an action that the Attorney General's Office describes as the “corollary” of a plan to obstruct Lula da Silva's inauguration.
