Pre-trial monitoring ordered after police reported former president had drafted request for asylum in Argentina

Jair Bolsonaro must be under constant police surveillance, a supreme court justice has ruled, to prevent Brazil’s former president from fleeing days before the start of the trial that could see him jailed for more than 40 years.

The far-right leader has been wearing an electronic ankle tag since mid-July and has been under house arrest since early August. But last Monday, the prosecutor general asked the supreme court to tighten surveillance of the 70-year-old, after federal police reported he had even drafted a request for political asylum in Argentina.

In Tuesday’s ruling, Justice Alexandre de Moraes agreed there was a “risk of flight” and ordered police to monitor Bolsonaro’s Brasília mansion 24 hours a day.

Moraes said officers should be stationed “discreetly”, without entering the former president’s home or disturbing the neighbourhood.

The trial, in which the far-right leader and seven of his closest aides – including high-ranking military officers – are accused of leading an attempted coup to overturn the result of the 2022 election, is scheduled to begin next Tuesday.

While Bolsonaro denies the charges, many legal experts argue the evidence against him makes conviction and a severe sentence all but certain.

Running in parallel at the supreme court is another case in which Bolsonaro and his son, the congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, are under investigation for trying to obstruct the proceedings and pressure the justices into acquitting the former president.

It was in this case that Moraes first ordered Bolsonaro to wear an electronic ankle tag and later placed him under house arrest, arguing that the former president was defying court orders – such as to stay away from social media.

In Tuesday’s ruling, Moraes wrote that Eduardo’s activity was “intensifying” as the trial approaches, and that his “incessant actions, including while based abroad, indicate the possibility of a risk of flight on the part of Bolsonaro”.

Last week, federal police said they had found a document on Bolsonaro’s mobile phone, dated February 2024, containing a draft request for political asylum addressed to Argentina’s president, Javier Milei.

A prominent congressman from the leftwing Workers’ party of the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, also approached federal police saying he had information that Bolsonaro was planning to seek asylum at the US embassy, which is located near his mansion.

Eduardo Bolsonaro has been in the US since February and has boasted of being responsible for persuading the US president, Donald Trump, to impose 50% tariffs on Brazil in retaliation for the case brought against Bolsonaro.

The pressure has also led to US sanctions being imposed on the justices handling the case – most notably against Moraes, who was hit with Magnitsky measures normally reserved for perpetrators of serious human rights abuses.

Also on Tuesday, Lula said Trump was “acting as if he had been elected emperor of the world” and called Eduardo a “traitor to the homeland”.

Source: www.theguardian.com