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Bolsonaro has been detained after authorities determined he posed a definite escape threat while under home confinement.

The former head of state was sentenced of orchestrating a military coup in September and handed more than over two decades in incarceration, but he remained under confinement pending legal challenges.

High Court Judge Justice Moraes said the action to imprison the 70-year-old politician was a precautionary step after "new facts" came to light.

This included seeking to disable his ankle monitor and a summons to a supporters' gathering that could enable a potential flight.

Court Filing Details Escape Risks

In a filing authorising the detention, the judge said information from the centre monitoring Bolsonaro's house arrest suggested the ex-president's "intention to break the tracking monitor to ensure success in his escape.

This, it said, would be "facilitated by the disorder caused by the protest called by his offspring.

His offspring, Flávio Bolsonaro, who serves as a legislator, called for a meeting of his backers near the former president's residence to take place on Saturday evening.

Flávio Bolsonaro wrote on social media on the previous day: Will you battle for your homeland, or observe everything from your mobile device there on your couch? I call on you to struggle with us."

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

Embassy Asylum Concerns

Part of Justice Moraes's ruling was the possibility of Bolsonaro's move to foreign missions near the dwelling, considering that the investigations revealed a background of arranging to ask for protection through a embassy office", a statement said.

The court filing highlights that the United States embassy in the national capital, Brazil's capital, is positioned around 8 miles from the former president's residence.

International Reactions

Bolsonaro's legal woes have provoked anger from fellow populist conservative US President Donald Trump, causing him to implement a half-rate duty on goods coming from Brazil.

The former president is being detained in a federal law enforcement building in Brazil's capital city and will have a detention review on the following day.

Latest Court Petitions

It was only on Friday that the former president's lawyers asked the Supreme Court to allow him to complete his entire prison term under house arrest, with electronic monitoring.

They also requested that he be authorized to leave his home for healthcare, saying he required frequent medical attention for pulmonary infections and other health problems.

Details of Guilty Verdict

Bolsonaro was found guilty of orchestrating a scheme aimed at maintaining his control after he lost the 2022 election to his ideological adversary, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Top judicial officials said that he knew of a plan which included plans to assassinate the current president and his VP candidate, his vice-presidential candidate, and to arrest and execute Justice Moraes - the Supreme Court justice who has been managing his judicial proceedings.

The plot was prevented because it couldn't obtain the backing of the army and air force commanders. Lula was sworn in without issue on 1 January 2023.

But a week later, on 8 January, many Bolsonaro supporters attacked and damaged public facilities in the capital, Brasília.

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

The magistrates found that the rioters had been incited by Bolsonaro whose strategy, they said, was for the national armed forces to step in, restore order and bring him back to power.

At the moment, his attorneys called the decades-long sentence unreasonably severe".

He was also barred from campaigning for office until twenty-sixty - eight years after the end of his sentence.

The ex-leader called the court case a political persecution and said it was intended to stop him participating in the 2026 presidential election.