Brazil’s Supreme Court on Thursday rejected former President Jair Bolsonaro’s bid to have his prison term for plotting a coup commuted to house arrest.
Defense lawyers filed the request a day earlier, arguing the far-right leader faced a “real risk of a sudden deterioration” in health and should therefore serve his 27-year sentence at home.
Bolsonaro, 70, has been hospitalized for more than a week following surgery for a groin hernia and a subsequent procedure to address persistent hiccups.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes dismissed the claim, saying there was no evidence of any decline in the former president’s condition. “Contrary to what the defense alleges, there has been no worsening of Jair Messias Bolsonaro’s health,” he wrote.
Bolsonaro, who governed Brazil from 2019 to 2022, has long struggled with health problems stemming from a 2018 campaign trail stabbing that left him with lasting abdominal complications and required multiple major surgeries.
