 "Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro stands at his home while under house arrest, ordered by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, as he awaits trial over an alleged plot to overturn the 2022 election, in Brasilia, Brazil, August 14, 2025. File Image/Reuters")
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s lawyers have sought house arrest for his 27-year prison sentence from the country’s Supreme Court, citing health concerns.
A document seen by Reuters says that Bolsonaro’s lawyers argued that recurrent intestinal issues suffered by the 70-year-old leader would make imprisonment life-threatening. The former president was stabbed in the stomach while campaigning in the state of Minas Gerais in 2018.
“It is certain that keeping the petitioner in a prison environment would pose a concrete and immediate risk to his physical integrity and even his life,” the document said. It asked for house arrest on humanitarian grounds.
In September, Bolsonaro was diagnosed with skin cancer. The announcement came as the beleaguered far-right leader was discharged from a hospital in the capital Brasilia, where he was rushed under prison guard after suffering violent bouts of hiccups, vomiting and low blood pressure.
The far-right firebrand was convicted earlier this year of plotting to overthrow leftist rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who beat him in the 2022 presidential elections.
Bolsonaro has already been under house arrest for violating precautionary measures in a separate case, in which he allegedly courted United States interference to halt the criminal proceedings against him.
His lawyers noted that earlier this year, the top court let 76-year-old former President Fernando Collor de Mello serve house arrest due to his age and health issues, including Parkinson’s disease, after he was sentenced to almost nine years in prison on corruption and money laundering charges.
Quick Reads
View AllRecent medical tests on Bolsonaro show that “a serious or sudden illness is not a question of ‘if’, but of ‘when’,” his legal team said.
One of Bolsonaro’s sons, Carlos, said on Friday that the former president was facing severe hiccups and vomiting constantly. “I’ve never seen him like this,” he wrote on the social media platform X.
With inputs from agencies