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Brazil’s Top Court Keeps Bolsonaro in Custody After Ankle‑Monitor Tampering

Justices ruled he must remain jailed, citing flight risk tied to evidence he damaged his tracking device.

Overview

  • Four Supreme Court justices unanimously upheld Alexandre de Moraes’s order converting Jair Bolsonaro’s house arrest to pretrial detention.
  • Monitoring alerts at 12:08 a.m. and police evidence showed burn marks and damage to the ankle tag, and court video recorded Bolsonaro admitting he used a soldering iron.
  • Bolsonaro told a custody hearing that a recent medication change triggered paranoia and hallucinations; his doctors said they suspended a drug after the episode.
  • Judges pointed to the planned supporters’ vigil near his residence and the proximity of foreign embassies as factors increasing escape risk.
  • The former president is held at federal police headquarters in Brasília as he appeals his roughly 27-year coup-plot conviction and seeks humanitarian house arrest.