The former Brazilian president taken into custody after being declared a flight risk

The former Brazilian leader has been detained after authorities found he posed a serious risk of fleeing while under domestic detention.

The ex-president was sentenced of planning a government overthrow in the ninth month and handed more than a 27-year term in jail, but he remained under house arrest pending court reviews.

Top Judicial Official the presiding justice said the decision to arrest the elderly politician was a preventative measure after fresh information came to light.

This included trying to remove his tracking device and a call for a supporters' gathering that could facilitate a possible escape.

Judicial Records Show Escape Concerns

In a document approving the detention, the judge said information from the facility tracking Bolsonaro's house arrest suggested the ex-president's aim to disable the tracking monitor to ensure success in his escape.

This, it said, would be "facilitated by the confusion caused by the demonstration called by his child.

His offspring, Flávio, who works as a senator, called for a gathering of his followers near his father's house to take place on Saturday night.

Flávio Bolsonaro wrote on social media on Friday: Will you battle for your homeland, or observe everything from your phone there on your settee? I urge you to struggle with us."

He said the demonstration would be so followers could "pray for his physical condition and for the return of democracy in our land."

Embassy Asylum Concerns

Part of the magistrate's decision was the possibility of Bolsonaro's "relocation to embassies near the dwelling, considering that the investigations revealed a record of planning to ask for protection through a diplomatic representation", a declaration said.

The court filing emphasizes that the United States embassy in the national capital, the capital city, is located around 8 miles from his dwelling.

Global Responses

His judicial problems have provoked anger from fellow right-wing populist US President Trump, prompting him to impose a half-rate duty on imports of Brazilian goods.

Bolsonaro is being kept in a national police facility in the capital and will have a imprisonment assessment on Sunday.

Recent Judicial Appeals

It was only on Friday that the ex-leader's attorneys asked the Top Court to allow him to serve his whole jail sentence under domestic detention, with digital surveillance.

They also requested that he be authorized to depart his residence for medical treatment, saying he demanded frequent medical attention for pulmonary infections and other ailments.

Background on Conviction

The former president was determined responsible of heading a scheme aimed at keeping him in power after he failed to win the 2022 election to his political opponent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

High Court judges said that he knew of a plan which involved plans to assassinate Lula and his running partner, Geraldo Alckmin, and to detain and kill Alexandre de Moraes - the High Court judge who has been presiding over the former president's case.

The plot was stopped because it failed to get the endorsement of the army and air force commanders. His successor was took office without problem on 1 January 2023.

But a seven days after, on the eighth of January, many Bolsonaro supporters stormed and vandalised government buildings in the national capital, Brazil's capital.

The security forces intervened and around fifteen hundred individuals were taken into custody.

The justices found that the demonstrators had been incited by the former president whose plan, they said, was for the national armed forces to intervene, reestablish control and bring him back to power.

At the moment, his attorneys called the decades-long sentence extremely harsh.

He was also barred from campaigning for office until the year 2060 - a decade minus two years after the conclusion of his imprisonment.

The one-time head of state called the court case a political persecution and said it was aimed at blocking him running in the 2026 presidential election.