Ex-President Bolsonaro starts serving 27-year sentence for Brazil coup plot

BRASILIA: Brazil's Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro to begin a 27-year prison sentence for a coup plot against his successor, a climax to years of political turmoil and legal battles over his contentious legacy in Brazilian democracy.

AI Brief

Supreme Court confirms Bolsonaro's 27-year sentence for plotting a coup after 2022 election loss.
He is detained in Brasilia after tampering with his ankle monitor while under house arrest.
Bolsonaro's political future dims as allies grow impatient and polls favor Lula for 2026.

The top court formally concluded the case against Bolsonaro on Tuesday, making his conviction final, pending confirmation by a four-member Supreme Court panel in the evening. The panel already rejected his appeal this month.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes told Bolsonaro to start serving his sentence in the Federal Police Superintendency in Brasilia, where he has been detained since Saturday after he tampered with his ankle monitor while under house arrest in a separate case.

The decision was the latest setback for a politician who rose from the fringe far right to the presidency in 2019, reshaping national debates with a populist style, appeals to military nostalgia and polarizing stances that left the country deeply divided.

Since leaving office in 2022, Bolsonaro has now been convicted, barred from public office and abandoned by one-time ally U.S. President Donald Trump, who has started reversing steep tariffs imposed to punish Bolsonaro's prosecution.

"Today is a memorable day for Brazilian democracy,” congressman Lindbergh Farias said on X. “For the first time in our history, we are seeing a former president of the Republic and generals being arrested for a coup d’état.”

One of the ex-president's lawyers, Celso Vilardi, said the court rushed to conclude the case and should have allowed more time for appeals. His attorneys said they will keep fighting to challenge the outcome.

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 current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro also served more than 100 days under house arrest in Brasilia while facing charges he solicited Trump's interference on his behalf.

'EMOTIONALLY DESTROYED,' SON SAYS

Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, the former president's son, told Reuters in his first comments to the media on Tuesday that Bolsonaro's prosecution was "psychological torture" and a "rigged game."

Another Bolsonaro son, Carlos, said after visiting his father in custody on Tuesday: "He is emotionally destroyed."

Although Bolsonaro insists he will run for president again next year, he and his family are also working to preserve influence within Brazil’s right‑wing politics and shape the choice of an alternative conservative candidate in 2026.

This has stirred impatience among allies who want to build an effective challenge in 2026 to Lula. He holds a lead in polls over all potential right-wing candidates and his approval ratings climbed again in a poll on Tuesday.

But Bolsonaro's defense in his ankle-monitor tampering case – that he was impaired by prescription drugs - fueled doubts about his political viability. He said the medication led him to believe the ankle monitor concealed listening equipment.

"Until recently, Bolsonaro often boasted about being an athlete," said Pedro Fassoni Arruda, a political science professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo who noted declining public support for Bolsonaro in polls.

"Now he presents himself as someone frail and aging."

In contrast to the mobs he spurred to storm Congress in 2023, only a handful of his supporters gathered outside the Federal Police building where Bolsonaro was being held on Tuesday.

Trump on Saturday said Bolsonaro's detention was "too bad," in a jarring change of tone after months of pressuring Brazilian courts to drop the case against the former president.

Still, Bolsonaro's closest allies insist he remains potent.

"He is not politically weakened," said right-wing Senator Damares Alves. "He is simply showing what we have long said: His health is not well."