BRASILIA (Reuters) -Brazilian authorities placed former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is standing trial on charges of plotting a coup, under house arrest on Monday, in a move that could escalate tensions with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes issued the arrest order, saying in his decision that the right-wing firebrand did not comply with judicial restraining orders imposed on him last month.
Bolsonaro is facing charges that he conspired with dozens of his allies to overturn his 2022 electoral loss to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Moraes also banned Bolsonaro from receiving visits, with exceptions for lawyers and people authorized by the court, and use of a cell phone either directly or through third parties.
A press representative for Bolsonaro confirmed that he was placed under house arrest late afternoon on Monday and that a cell phone had been seized.
In a statement, Brazil’s federal police said it had complied with the Supreme Court’s orders for house arrest and to seize cell phones, though it did not name the target of the operation.
The restrictions on Bolsonaro had been imposed over allegations that he courted the interference of Trump, who recently tied steep new tariffs on Brazilian goods to what he called a “witch hunt” against Bolsonaro, his ideological ally.
The house arrest order follows over two years of investigations into Bolsonaro’s role in an election-denying movement that culminated in riots by his supporters that rocked Brasilia in January 2023. The unrest drew comparisons to the riots at the U.S. Capitol after Trump‘s electoral defeat in 2020.
In contrast with the tangle of criminal cases which mostly stalled against Trump, Brazilian courts and investigators moved swiftly against Bolsonaro, threatening to end his political career and fracture his right-wing movement.
Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo Bolsonaro, a Brazilian congressman, moved to the U.S. around the same time the former president’s trial kicked off to drum up support for his father in Washington. The younger Bolsonaro said the move had influenced Trump’s decision to impose new tariffs on Brazil.
Trump last month shared a letter he had sent to Bolsonaro. “I have seen the terrible treatment you are receiving at the hands of an unjust system turned against you,” he wrote. “This trial should end immediately!”
Washington late in July hit Moraes with sanctions, accusing the judge of authorizing arbitrary pre-trial detentions and suppressing freedom of expression.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Bolsonaro’s house arrest.
However, Trump’s tactics may be backfiring in Brazil, compounding trouble for Bolsonaro and rallying public support behind Lula’s leftist government.
In an interview with Reuters last month, Bolsonaro called Moraes a “dictator” and said the restrictive measures against him were acts of “cowardice.”
(Reporting by Ricardo Brito in Brasilia; additional reporting by Luciana Magalhaes in Sao Paulo and Daphne Psaledakis in Washington; Writing by Andre Romani; Editing by Kylie Madry and Leslie Adler)
