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Bolsonaro has been arrested after authorities determined he posed a concrete flight risk while under home confinement.

The ex-president was sentenced of orchestrating a government overthrow in last fall and given more than 27 years in prison, but he remained under house arrest pending legal challenges.

High Court Judge Justice Moraes said the decision to arrest the elderly politician was a preventative measure after fresh information emerged.

This included seeking to disable his tracking device and a call for a public vigil that could facilitate a potential flight.

Legal Document Reveals Escape Risks

In a filing authorising the arrest, the magistrate said intelligence from the centre monitoring the former president's confinement suggested the ex-president's "intention to break the surveillance device to ensure success in his getaway".

This, it said, would be made easier by the confusion caused by the protest called by his son.

His offspring, his son Flávio, who works as a congressional representative, called for a assembly of his supporters near his father's house to take place on Saturday night.

His son wrote on social media on last Friday: "Are you going to fight for your country, or watch it all from your phone there on your sofa? I urge you to struggle with us."

He said the vigil would be so supporters could offer prayers for his well-being and for the restoration of democratic rule in our land."

Embassy Asylum Concerns

Part of Justice Moraes's decision was the potential of Bolsonaro's move to embassies near the home, considering that the inquiries revealed a record of planning to seek refuge through a embassy office", a declaration said.

The court filing highlights that the United States embassy in the national capital, Brasilia, is positioned around 13km from his dwelling.

Worldwide Consequences

His judicial problems have generated frustration from fellow conservative nationalist American leader Donald Trump, causing him to enact a 50% tariff on Brazilian product imports.

He is being held in a Federal Police station in the capital and will have a imprisonment assessment on the next day.

Recent Judicial Appeals

It was only on the previous day that the his legal team asked the Top Court to allow him to fulfill his full incarceration period under home confinement, with electronic monitoring.

They also asked that he be allowed to exit his dwelling for medical treatment, saying he required ongoing care for pulmonary infections and other ailments.

Details of Guilty Verdict

The former president was found guilty of leading a plot aimed at keeping him in power after he failed to win the presidential race to his ideological adversary, President Lula.

High Court judges said that he knew of a plot which involved plans to kill his opponent and his running partner, Geraldo Alckmin, and to imprison and murder Alexandre de Moraes - the top judicial official who has been overseeing Bolsonaro's trial.

The conspiracy was stopped because it couldn't obtain the backing of the military leaders. His successor was sworn in without problem on 1 January 2023.

But a following week, on the eighth of January, many his backers invaded and destroyed public facilities in the federal district, Brasília.

The law enforcement took action and around fifteen hundred individuals were detained.

The magistrates found that the rioters had been encouraged by Bolsonaro whose scheme, they said, was for the country's army to take action, bring back stability and return him to office.

At the time, Bolsonaro's lawyers called the decades-long sentence unreasonably severe".

He was also barred from running for public office until twenty-sixty - a decade minus two years after the completion of his term.

The ex-leader called the legal proceedings a political persecution and said it was aimed at blocking him competing in the 2026 national vote.