BRASILIA, Brazil — Brazil’s federal police on Saturday arrested former president Jair Bolsonaro over suspicion he was plotting to escape and avoid starting a 27-year prison sentence for leading a coup attempt. The decision laid bare some of the country’s divisions, with many uncorking Champagne outside the far-right leader’s prison to celebrate as his supporters prepared a religious act in his favor.
In a dramatic and unexpected twist in the final stage of a long and divisive criminal trial, federal agents entered Bolsonaro’s house early Saturday under the order of a Supreme Court Justice to take the former president to the headquarters of the country’s federal police in the capital, Brasilia.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversaw the case on Bolsonaro’s attempt to keep the presidency after his defeat to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2022, ordered the preemptive arrest after saying the far-right leader’s ankle monitor was violated at 12:08 a.m. on Saturday. His lawyers claimed in a statement that did not take place.
A report by custody agents released later in the day — and reviewed by The Associated Press — said Bolsonaro admitted using a soldering iron to try to open the device. In a court video also seen by the AP, Bolsonaro is heard admitting such attempt. The footage shows the ankle monitor’s cap heavily damaged.
Bolsonaro, 70, who had been under house arrest, was ordered to wear the device after being deemed a flight risk. His aide Andriely Cirino confirmed that the arrest took place around 6 a.m. on Saturday.
In the following hours, dozens of cars honked outside the federal police’s headquarters as some Bolsonaro supporters protested. Police have since tried keep the small, but fierce, opposing sides separated.
De Moraes said the arrest was a preventive measure to avoid a potential escape during a protest organized by his son later Saturday.
“Are you going to fight for your country or are you going to watch it all from your cellphone in your home’s sofa?,” Flávio Bolsonaro said in a video inviting people to go outside his fathers’ house at 7 p.m. “I invite you to fight with us.”
De Moraes said the attempt to break the ankle monitor was a confirmation Bolsonaro would try to escape during “the confusion that would be caused by a demonstration organized by his son.”
The judge said there was a chance of Bolsonaro fleeing to the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia. The Supreme Court justice also mentioned other defendants in the coup case and political allies of the former president leaving Brazil to avoid jail.
“He is located about 13 kilometers (8 miles) away from where the United States of America embassy lies, in a distance that can be covered in a 15-minute drive,” said de Moraes, who has been sanctioned by the Trump administration.
In August, Brazil’s federal police found messages that linked Bolsonaro to a political asylum request to Argentina, where an ally of his, Javier Milei, is president.
Trump was asked outside the White House on Saturday about Bolsonaro’s arrest, but said that was the first he was hearing of it. “Is that what happened? That’s too bad,” he said. Pressed for further comment, he said: “I just think it’s too bad.”
Trump also said he’d spoken with Lula on Friday night and that the two might be meeting “in the very near future.”
Bolsonaro’s lawyers said in a statement that the former president’s arrest “causes deep perplexity because, as (de Moraes’) chronology of facts shows, it is based in a vigil for prayer,” not a protest.
The preemptive arrest of Bolsonaro, who is an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, will be discussed and voted on Monday by the five-justice Supreme Court panel that both convicted and sentenced him to prison by 4 votes to 1 in September.
Local media reported that Bolsonaro, who was Brazil’s president from 2019 to 2022 and remains a key political player, was expected to begin serving his sentence sometime next week after all appeals of his conviction are exhausted.
Few protesters were outside the federal police headquarters in Brasilia as of Saturday morning, with more expected later as organizers of the vigil mentioned by Bolsonaro’s lawyers say they will move it to where the former president is jailed.
Detractors of the former president were celebrating online and scheduling parties later in the day in major Brazilian cities.
“The video shot by Flávio Bolsonaro stimulates the disrespect to the constitutional text, to the judicial decision and to (democratic) institutions, showing there’s no limits for the criminal organization in its attempt to create chaos and conflict in this country, in a total disrespect to democracy,” de Moraes wrote in his ruling.
Bolsonaro and several of his allies were convicted by a panel of Supreme Court justices for attempting to overthrow Brazil’s democracy following his 2022 election defeat. Prosecutors said the coup plot included plans to kill Lula, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and de Moraes.
Bolsonaro was also found guilty on charges of leading an armed criminal organization and attempting the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law. He denies any wrongdoing.
Fabio Wajngarten, Bolsonaro’s former press adviser and lawyer, said the arrest of the former president was “a terrible stain on the institutions.”
Speaking in a video posted on X, Wajngarten added: “It’s a shame. I hope this is reviewed soon.” He claimed Bolsonaro’s ankle monitoring device was working perfectly as of Saturday morning.
“How could something that was broken, violated, be functioning normally nine hours later?” he wrote. “The president had dinner — a soup — yesterday with four brothers and brothers-in-law, took medication for hiccups, felt drowsy and laid down around 10 p.m. None of his sons were at the house.”
Sóstenes Cavalcante, Bolsonaro’s party whip in the lower house, accused de Moraes of showing “psychopathy at the highest level.”
“We will always stand by your side. Stay strong,” he said in a video shared with the AP. “We will respond appropriately.”
In an Instagram post, Michelle Bolsonaro, the former first lady, vowed Bolsonaro’s supporters “will not give up on our nation.” She was outside Brasilia when her husband was arrested at home.
Lula is in South Africa for a summit of the G20 group of industrialized and emerging-market nations. Gleisi Hoffmann, one of his top ministers, said on her social media channels that Bolsonaro’s arrest comes after “violent attempts of coersion” of Supreme Court justices by the former president.
Bolsonaro was placed under house arrest in early August, weeks before he was convicted. His lawyers were pleading with Brazil’s Supreme Court to keep him at home to serve his sentence, citing his poor health, but Brazilian law requires that all convicts start their sentences in prison.
Creomar de Souza, a political analyst with Dharma Political Risk and Strategy, a political consultancy firm based in Brasilia, said the move by de Moraes will impact next year’s presidential election, with Lula seeking reelection and Bolsonaro already barred from running.
“They had the idea of turning the 2026 election into a referendum on Bolsonaro. And for that to happen they needed actions, they needed to build an optics of Bolsonaro as a martyr and an impactful popular leader,” de Souza told the AP. “At the end of the day, this shows the Bolsonaro family they will need to build their own alternative for the 2026 elections.”
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Savarese reported from Sao Paulo.
Associated Press writers Gabriela Sá Pessoa in Sao Paulo and Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.
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