Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the leading figure in the case against Bolsonaro, made the announcement on Tuesday.
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The court indicated that Bolsonaro would begin his sentence at the federal police headquarters in the capital, Brasília, where he is currently being held.
In September, Bolsonaro was convicted of plotting a coup to retain power after his defeat in the 2022 presidential election.
He was found guilty of trying to subvert the democratic rule of law, attempting a coup, participating in an armed conspiracy, damaging public property and contributing to the deterioration of a listed national heritage site.
He was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison. But that sentence did not begin immediately to allow for an appeal.
Bolsonaro disputed the defeat
A member of Brazil’s far-right Liberal Party, known as PL, Bolsonaro was a former army captain who served for nearly 27 years in the Chamber of Deputies before becoming president.
He led the country from 2019 to 2023. But critics accused him of manipulating his office to undermine Brazil’s voting system, and in June 2023, after he left office, Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court ruled that he had abused his power.
Bolsonaro ran for re-election in the 2022 race, but in a run-off vote, he lost to leftist leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
However, the right-wing leader refused to publicly accept his defeat, although media reports indicated he may have done so privately in a meeting with the Supreme Court.
Instead, Bolsonaro and his allies filed a legal challenge, arguing that the election results were full of “inconsistencies”.
At the time, De Moraes dismissed the complaint, citing “the complete absence of any evidence” and “bad faith” arguments. They also fined Bolsonaro’s team about $4.3 million.
Meanwhile, Bolsonaro’s supporters protested across the country, blocking highways and attacking police headquarters in Brasília.
The unrest reached its peak on January 8, 2023, a week after Lula was sworn in. Bolsonaro briefly left the country, but his supporters gathered at the Three Powers Plaza in Brasília and stormed government buildings.
The riot led to several federal investigations. And in November 2024, federal police released an 884-page report detailing evidence suggesting that Bolsonaro and his allies had conspired to overturn the election results.
Recordings and testimony indicate that Bolsonaro and his co-defendants hoped to launch a military coup to prevent Lula from taking power and force new elections.
According to police findings, some military officers aligned with Bolsonaro had also suggested a plot to poison Lula and shoot de Moraes.
A flight risk?
In February, prosecutors formally charged Bolsonaro, who was later put on trial.
But Bolsonaro’s defense has repeatedly framed the charges as political maneuvering, and the former president has maintained his innocence.
United States President Donald Trump has also tried to pressure the Brazilian government to drop the case, imposing a 50 percent tariff on some of the country’s exports and calling the trial a “witch hunt”.
Since August, Bolsonaro has been under house arrest over fears he might try to flee abroad. Already, in 2024, he had spent several nights in the Hungarian embassy, leading to reports that he was seeking diplomatic sanctuary with the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Police also reportedly recovered a letter addressed to Argentine President Javier Meili, in which Bolsonaro claimed he was being persecuted and appealed for political asylum.
Earlier this month, Brazil’s Supreme Court rejected Bolsonaro’s appeal to overturn his prison sentence.
His defense team has since petitioned to have his sentence commuted to 27 years of house arrest on humanitarian grounds. Bolsonaro was stabbed while campaigning in 2018, and has been suffering from stomach problems.
But on Saturday he was suddenly taken into police custody after it was found that his ankle monitor had been tampered with.
Bolsonaro reportedly told a court official that the medications he was taking were making him feel jittery and causing “hallucinatory” side effects. He denied being a flight risk.
However, De Moraes indicated that there were “very serious indications of a possible escape attempt”.
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