By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

Bolsonaro to Wear Ankle Monitor

We covered Bolsonaro in 2021 and 2022, whereby now former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Friday had his home searched by police and was ordered to wear an ankle monitor, adding to legal pressure that US President Donald Trump has tried to end by threatening a steep tariff on Brazilian goods.

Lawmakers from Bolsonaro's right-wing Liberal Party said the former president had been ordered to wear an ankle monitor, stop using social media, and cease communications with diplomats.

News media in Brazil reported that the court orders targeting Bolsonaro had been motivated by the risk of his fleeing to the United States.

Jair Bolsonaro, the former president of Brazil, outside the Secretariat of Penitentiary Administration on Friday. Brazil’s Supreme Court has ordered him to stay away from foreign embassies because it fears he could flee justice.

“It is a supreme humiliation,” Bolsonaro told journalists in the capital, 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.”

Liberal Party lawmakers said Bolsonaro was also banned from contacting key allies, including his son Eduardo, a Brazilian congressman who has been lobbying in Washington to help his father.

Bolsonaro's lawyers in a statement expressed "surprise and indignation" at what they called "severe precautionary measures imposed against him," adding that Bolsonaro has so far complied with court orders.

Federal police in a statement said they had served search warrants and unspecified "precautionary measures" ordered by the Supreme Court, but did not name Bolsonaro, who governed Latin America's largest country from 2019 to 2022.

Bolsonaro, who was friendly with Trump when they were both in office, is on trial before Brazil's Supreme Court on charges of plotting a coup to stop President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office in January 2023.

Bolsonaro was also banned from using social media, where he has millions of followers.

The television network TV Globo claimed police had found $14,000 (£10,400) in cash during their search of Bolsonaro’s two-story villa. A USB flash drive that had allegedly been “hidden in the bathroom” was also reportedly seized.

Federal police are investigating what role, if any, Bolsonaro had in convincing Trump to hit Brazil with 50% tariffs in an apparent attempt to pressure Brazilian authorities into dropping the charges against Bolsonaro or pardoning him. His congressman son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, travelled to the US in February and has reportedly spent recent weeks lobbying Trump administration officials to impose sanctions on Alexandre de Moraes, the high-profile supreme court judge presiding over the investigation into his father. Eduardo Bolsonaro celebrated Trump’s tariffs last week, tweeting: “THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP – MAKE BRAZIL FREE AGAIN.”

But if Trump’s politically motivated trade war was designed to help the Bolsonaros, it appears to have backfired.

Jair Bolsonaro leaves the secretariat of penitentiary administration in Brasilia on Friday, where he arrived after the order to fit him with an electronic ankle tag

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whom Bolsonaro allegedly conspired against to stop him taking office, has enjoyed a bounce in the polls, which analysts have attributed to his handling of the crisis. On Thursday night, Lula gave a televised address to the nation in which he attacked Trump’s “unacceptable blackmail” and painted the politicians who supported it as “traitors to the nation”. “Trying to meddle in the Brazilian judicial system represents a serious attack on national sovereignty,” Lula said.

Speaking to reporters after the raid on his home, Bolsonaro denied leading a conspiracy to prevent Lula from taking power by staging a military coup. The ex-president also denied he was considering fleeing abroad. “I have never thought about leaving Brazil. I have never thought about going into a [foreign] embassy,” Bolsonaro said, although he admitted he had been planning to have lunch with a group of ambassadors next week. “I won’t go any more,” he said, describing the police operation as “supreme humiliation”.

Protesters wearing masks depicting President Trump and Mr. Bolsonaro at a protest in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Friday.

In a statement, Bolsonaro’s lawyer, Celso Vilardi, voiced “surprise and anger” over the “severe” restrictions imposed upon his client.

Justice Moraes said that he ordered the new measures on the recommendations of Brazil’s federal police and attorney general because the Bolsonaros had been working to get Trump to coerce the court to drop the charges against the former president.

Federal police outside the government building in Brazil’s capital, where Mr. Bolsonaro arrived after the Supreme Court ordered him to be fitted with an electronic ankle monitor.

“An attempt to subject the functioning of the federal Supreme Court to the scrutiny of another state constitutes an attack on national sovereignty,” Justice Moraes said in his order.

An ankle monitor was necessary, he added, because Mr. Bolsonaro may try to flee justice, pointing out his strong ties with the Trump administration.

 

 

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