Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been arrested after the Federal Police (PF) executed a preventive arrest warrant at his home in Brasília.
According to a PF statement, officers on Saturday, November 22, 2025, carried out the arrest based on a preventive detention order requested by the PF itself and authorised by the Federal Supreme Court (STF).
Unmarked vehicles entered the former president’s residence in a condominium in the Botanical Garden, where Bolsonaro was taken into custody early in the morning. He was transported to the PF Superintendence, arriving at approximately 6:35 am.
Upon arrival, he was directed to a state room reserved for high-ranking public figures such as former presidents. PF sources told reporters that the trigger for the preventive arrest was a vigil organised by Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president’s eldest son, outside the condominium.
Authorities determined that the gathering posed a risk to public safety and to law enforcement officers, prompting the PF to request immediate preventive detention.
Bolsonaro is currently undergoing a corpus delicti examination at the National Institute of Criminalistics (INC). He was previously sentenced in September to 27 years and 3 months in prison for attempting a coup d’état after his 2022 election loss to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. That conviction is still under appeal, and Saturday’s arrest is not related to the execution of that sentence.
Member of the Chamber of Deputies and Minority Leader Carol De Toni issued a strong statement condemning the arrest.
“The imprisonment of President Bolsonaro is one of the greatest absurdities ever committed by the ‘Brazilian justice system.’ The greatest leader that the right has ever had, a man who committed no crime whatsoever, was subjected to an absolutely null process, and now he is being taken to prison! We will fight to the end against this injustice,” she said.
Defense moves to seek humanitarian house arrest for Bolsonaro
Shortly before the arrest, Bolsonaro’s defense filed a request asking Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes to replace the closed regime with humanitarian house arrest.
According to a document reviewed by Reuters, his lawyers argued that the 70-year-old former president’s chronic intestinal complications, stemming from the 2018 stabbing during a campaign event, pose severe risks if he is kept in a standard prison facility.
“It is certain that keeping the petitioner in a prison environment would pose a concrete and immediate risk to his physical integrity and even his life,” the document said.
Bolsonaro has previously been placed under house arrest for violating precautionary measures in another case involving alleged attempts to solicit U.S. interference in his criminal proceedings.
His legal team maintains that if further appeals fail, he should begin serving his sentence under house arrest, citing precedent: earlier this year, former President Fernando Collor de Mello, 76, was allowed house arrest due to age and health concerns following a nearly nine-year corruption sentence.
Recent medical reports warned that “a serious or sudden illness is not a question of ‘if’, but of ‘when’.”
Bolsonaro’s son, Carlos, said on Friday that his father had been experiencing severe hiccups and constant vomiting. “I’ve never seen him like this,” he wrote on X.
His convictions include participating in an armed criminal organisation, attempting to violently abolish democracy, and organising a coup. On Friday, Bolsonaro briefly appeared in the doorway of his home while receiving federal lawmaker Nikolas Ferreira.
Trump’s support
In September, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defended Bolsonaro’s conviction in an op-ed published in the New York Times, responding to U.S. President Donald Trump’s characterization of the trial as a “witch hunt.” Lula described Bolsonaro’s conviction as a “historic decision which safeguards our institutions and the democratic rule of law.”
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President Lula said he wrote the article to maintain open communication with Trump, who had imposed 50% tariffs on Brazilian imports. Lula criticised the tariff increase, calling it “not only misguided but illogical.”
Relations between the U.S. and Brazil have been strained in recent months, unlike during Bolsonaro’s presidency, when he and Trump were close allies and Bolsonaro paid a visit to Mar-a-Lago in 2020.
Trump said he found Bolsonaro’s 27-year conviction “very surprising,” and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the U.S. would “respond accordingly to this witch hunt.”
However, on Thursday, November 20, Trump reversed course and removed the 40% tariffs he had imposed in July on Brazilian beef, coffee, cocoa, fruits, and other food products. The rollback is part of a broader effort to reduce consumer food costs in the United States, following recent tariff hikes that contributed to price increases.
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