Brazil’s Supreme Court orders Bolsonaro to be transferred to a maximum security prison

Constant complaints from the Bolsonaro family about the conditions in which the family patriarch is being held at a police station in Brasília have led Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes to order his immediate transfer. The magistrate ordered on Thursday that former President Jair Bolsonaro, a retired army captain, be transferred to the maximum-security prison complex in Papuda, also in the Brazilian capital. The far-right politician will initially be placed in a wing designated for military personnel and officials, but will first undergo a medical examination to determine if he should be transferred to the prison hospital.

The former president will be held in the Military Police battalion at the Papuda complex. De Moraes underscored that Bolsonaro will have more space because he will be in a larger cell with a capacity for four inmates, but which he will not share with anyone else. Furthermore, he will now be able to undergo physical therapy and go out to the yard to enjoy some sunlight.

Another inmate in that special wing for uniformed personnel, known as Papudinha, is one of Bolsonaro’s accomplices in the scheme to conduct a coup despite his 2022 electoral defeat: his former minister, Anderson Torres, a military police officer. Papuda is one of the most heavily guarded prisons in Brazil. Many of the politicians imprisoned in the Lava Jato and Mensalão scandals have passed through its gates, and now members of the PCC (Primeiro Comando da Capital) leadership and prominent leaders of other organized crime groups are incarcerated there.

Bolsonaro was sentenced in September to 27 years in prison for leading the coup plot. In November, after exhausting all legal appeals, he entered Brasília’s main police station to serve his sentence. These conditions were virtually identical to those experienced by current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva while serving a sentence for corruption, which was later overturned.

Bolsonaro suffers from various health problems that led to his hospitalization for a week between Christmas and New Year’s for hernia surgery and treatment to alleviate his hiccups. Days later, he suffered a mild concussion after a fall. His lawyers have filed a series of appeals requesting that Moraes allow him to serve his sentence under house arrest.

His wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, even met with a veteran Supreme Court justice to personally convey her concerns, according to the news outlet G1. But Justice Moraes has consistently refused. The former president had already attempted to remove the electronic ankle monitor that was tracking his movements, during an episode of hallucination.

Both the former president’s wife and his children have repeatedly complained that the conditions at the police station were inadequate given his fragile health and emotional state.

Given Bolsonaro’s health problems, the justice authorized 24-hour medical attention, immediate transfer to the hospital in case of emergency, five meals a day especially prepared for him, and visits from his wife and all his children, except Eduardo, who went to the United States to lobby for his father and is being prosecuted for obstruction of justice. His eldest son, Flávio, has been designated by his father to run against President Lula in elections this October.

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