Former president ordered to wear electronic ankle monitor

SAO PAULO (AP):

Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro has been ordered to wear an ankle monitor, authorities said on Friday, in a move he described as “a supreme humiliation”.

The development came as federal police conducted searches at his home and his party’s headquarters in Brasília, in compliance with a Supreme Court order.

The order prohibits Bolsonaro from leaving the house at night, communicate with foreign ambassadors and diplomats, or approach embassies. The former president is also barred from using social media or contacting other individuals under investigation by the Supreme Court, including his son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, a Brazilian lawmaker who currently lives in the United States and is known for his close ties to US President Donald Trump.

Bolsonaro is currently on trial at the Supreme Court, accused of leading an alleged attempt to stage a coup to overturn the 2022 election in which he was defeated by left-wing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

“It is a supreme humiliation,” Bolsonaro told journalists in Brasilia after putting on the ankle monitor “I never thought about leaving Brazil, I never thought about going to an embassy, but the precautionary measures are because of that.”

On Thursday, Trump wrote to Bolsonaro describing his ally’s treatment by the Brazilian legal system as terrible and unjust. “This trial should end immediately!,” the US president said, adding that he “strongly voiced” his disapproval through his tariff policy.

The Supreme Court’s restrictions on Bolsonaro are part of a second investigation against Eduardo for allegedly working with US authorities to impose sanctions against Brazilian officials.

CONFESSIONS OF MISCONDUCT

Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is also the rapporteur of the case, said that the former president and his son’s recent actions were “blatant confessions of criminal conduct”, such as coercion during legal proceedings, obstruction of investigations, and attacks on national sovereignty.

“Alexandre de Moraes doubled down,” Eduardo said on X, mentioning the order to the Supreme Court justice ahead of the criminal cases against his father. His elder brother, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, said on X: “Prohibiting a father from speaking to his own son is the greatest symbol of the hatred that has consumed Alexandre de Moraes.”

Live aerial footage from local broadcasters showed federal police vehicles outside Bolsonaro’s residence in Brasília.

Congressman Sóstenes Cavalcante, the leader of Bolsonaro’s party in the lower house, told The Associated Press that officers also searched Bolsonaro’s office at the party’s headquarters. He described the operation as “another chapter in the persecution of conservatives and right-wing figures” in Brazil.

A lawyer for Bolsonaro did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Tuesday, Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet said in a report to the Supreme Court that the “evidence is clear: the defendant acted systematically, throughout his mandate and after his defeat at the polls, to incite insurrection and the destabilisation of the democratic rule of law.”

Bolsonaro has described the trial on X as a “witch hunt”, echoing a term used by Trump when he came to his South American ally’s defence last week.

Last week, Trump imposed a 50 per cent import tax on Brazil, directly tying the tariffs to Bolsonaro’s trial. The US president has hosted the former Brazilian president at his Mar-a-Lago resort when both were in power in 2020. Trump compared the Brazilian’s situation to his own. On Tuesday, speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump repeated the claim that the trial is a “witch hunt”.