In a move immediately condemned by the US, a Brazilian supreme court judge has ordered the house arrest of former president Jair Bolsonaro for breaching “preventative measures” that were imposed ahead of his trial for an alleged coup attempt.
According to the ruling on Monday by Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the far-right leader breached a ban on using social media which was imposed last month, when he was also ordered to wear an electronic ankle tag.
Moraes wrote that as demonstrators took to the streets in several cities across the country on Sunday in support of the former president, Bolsonaro used the social media accounts of allies to share messages containing “clear encouragement and incitement to attack the Supreme Federal Court, and overt support for foreign intervention in Brazil’s judiciary”.
Related: ‘Classic tinpot dictator’: Trump exports his assault on democracy to Brazil
“There is no doubt the precautionary measure was breached,” Moraes wrote.
The justice, who was sanctioned by the US last week over his role in the Bolsonaro case, ordered that Bolsonaro be placed under house arrest in the palm-lined compound where Bolsonaro rents a mansion in the south of the capital, Brasília, with visits restricted to close family members and lawyers.
Federal police were instructed to collect all mobile phones available at the property.
Visitors authorised to see the former president will not be allowed to use mobile phones, take photos or record videos.
A press representative for Bolsonaro confirmed he was placed under house arrest on Monday evening at his Brasilia residence by police who seized his mobile phone.
Bolsonaro’s lawyers said in a statement they would appeal against the decision, arguing the former president had not violated any court order.
The US state department, in a statement issued by its bureau of western hemisphere affairs on X, condemned the judge’s ruling and said it would “hold accountable all those aiding and abetting sanctioned conduct”.
“Justice Moraes, now a US-sanctioned human rights abuser, continues to use Brazil’s institutions to silence opposition and threaten democracy,” the bureau said.
“Putting even more restrictions on Jair Bolsonaro’s ability to defend himself in public is not a public service. Let Bolsonaro speak!”
Moraes has said Trump’s tariffs on Brazil and the “spurious” sanctions targeting him and other supreme court justices were part of an “illegal and immoral” ruse to obstruct justice that was being engineered by a group of Brazilian “traitors” who had lobbied foreign authorities to carry out “hostile acts” against the country’s economy.
In his ruling on Monday, Moraes noted that despite being banned from using social media, the far-right leader took part by phone in a pro-Bolsonaro demonstration on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday. During the rally, one of his politician sons, senator Flávio Bolsonaro, held a phone to the microphone so the crowd could hear the former president speak.
The senator himself had posted a video on social media showing Bolsonaro addressing supporters by phone – but later deleted the footage. Moraes argued that the deletion was a “blatant” attempt to conceal the breach of court-ordered restrictions.
“The flagrant disregard for the preventative measures was so obvious that – it bears repeating – the defendant’s own son, senator Flávio Nantes Bolsonaro, decided to delete the post from his Instagram account in order to conceal the legal transgression,” Moraes wrote.
The arrest order is part of an ongoing supreme court case in which Bolsonaro is accused of leading a plot to overturn the results of the last election, in which current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated the former army captain.
The trial is expected to conclude later this year, with Bolsonaro facing a potential sentence of more than 40 years in prison.
“Bolsonaro is being arrested gradually,” said political commentator Fernando Gabeira on GloboNews. “The supreme court, consciously or not, is leading him to prison in stages – to avoid a major shock.”
In Brasilía, the political temperature has been rising in recent days, with thousands of Bolsonaro supporters on Sunday rallying outside the central bank to offer their support.
Many of those protesters urged the US president Donald Trump – who recently hit Brazil with 50% tariffs in retribution for the alleged “witch hunt” against Bolsonaro – to take further action to help save their embattled leader.
“I’d like to give Trump a hug and tell him: thank you for worrying about us,” said Álvaro Junior, 64, one Bolsonaro supporter who was carrying a sign that read: “Thank you, Trump”.
Metal barricades have been erected around the supreme court, foreign ministry and congress in anticipation of possible rightwing protests or violence.
Trump further stoked the political flames last week by slapping sanctions on Moraes, who the US secretary of the treasury, Scott Bessent, accused of being “responsible for an oppressive campaign of censorship, arbitrary detentions that violate human rights and politicized prosecutions – including against former president Jair Bolsonaro”.
Lindovaldo Ribeiro Paulo, a 43-year-old in a red Maga cap, hailed the sanctions on Moraes, saying: “We feel even more admiration and even love for the American people now.”
In Monday’s ruling, Moraes said Bolsonaro had “repeated his unlawful conduct in an even more severe and defiant manner”, continuing to “urge and incite a foreign head of state to take measures aimed at unlawfully interfering with the normal course of judicial proceedings – in an attempt to generate social pressure on Brazilian authorities, in flagrant violation of national sovereignty”.
The post US condemns Brazil supreme court judge for ordering house arrest of ex-president Jair Bolsonaro appeared first on The Guardian.
