Brazil After "hallucination": Bolsonaro applies for house arrest again
The defense of Brazil's ex-president Jair Bolsonaro has once again applied to the Supreme Court for house arrest on health grounds.
24.11.2025, 06:31
SDA
"The applicant's state of health is impaired for various reasons," the news agency "Agencia Brasil" quoted from his lawyers' submission.
Bolsonaro was arrested on Saturday morning (local time) on suspicion of being a flight risk after an alarm on his electronic ankle bracelet indicated possible tampering. In a video later released by the court, he admitted to working on the device with a soldering iron - "out of curiosity", as he said. Footage shows a scorched plastic housing of the anklet. However, according to an official, the device "apparently remained intact".
Bolsonaro: "Had a hallucination"
According to the lawyers, Bolsonaro held a soldering iron to the device but did not want to remove it. "The video and the policewoman's assessment show that there was no attempt to tear the tape," they said. At his hearing, Bolsonaro said he "had a hallucination that the anklet was being tapped and therefore tried to open the cover".
According to his lawyers, who relied on a medical report from the specialists looking after him, Bolsonaro was "confused" by the interaction of several medications he was taking. The combination of these could lead to disorientation and hallucinations, among other things, it said. According to his defense lawyers, the 70-year-old suffers from lung infections, gastritis, skin cancer, persistent hiccup crises and complications following an assassination attempt during the 2018 election campaign.
Preventive detention due to risk of absconding
The preventive detention was ordered by Chief Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Among other things, he cited the damage to the surveillance equipment and a vigil in front of Bolsonaro's house, which his son, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, had called for. The judge ruled that possible chaos could have made it more difficult to control the house arrest and facilitated an escape.
Bolsonaro was most recently under house arrest due to violations of court conditions. His defense had already requested on Friday that he be kept under house arrest for health reasons in the case of the attempted coup d'état. The Supreme Court rejected the application.
The current preventive detention is not part of the execution of this sentence, for which he was sentenced to over 27 years in prison in September. The verdict is not yet final, but enforcement was last expected next week. It is unclear whether this will happen after the events of the weekend.
