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Jair Bolsonaro has been taken into custody after authorities found he posed a concrete flight risk while under domestic detention.

The one-time leader was convicted of plotting a government overthrow in the ninth month and handed more than a 27-year term in jail, but he was staying under house arrest pending legal challenges.

Top Judicial Official the presiding justice said the move to detain the elderly politician was a safety action after "new facts" came to light.

This encompassed attempting to break his ankle monitor and a summons to a public vigil that could facilitate a possible escape.

Judicial Records Show Escape Concerns

In a filing authorising the custody, the judge said intelligence from the facility tracking the former president's confinement suggested the one-time head of state's "intention to break the surveillance device to guarantee victory in his flight.

This, it said, would be made easier by the disorder caused by the gathering called by his child.

His child, Flávio Bolsonaro, who holds office as a congressional representative, called for a meeting of his followers near Bolsonaro's home to take place on Saturday evening.

His son wrote on online platforms on the previous day: Will you battle for your nation, or observe everything from your smartphone there on your couch? I urge you to struggle with us."

He said the gathering would be so backers could seek divine intervention for his physical condition and for the restoration of democratic rule in our land."

Embassy Asylum Concerns

Part of Justice Moraes's determination was the possibility of the former president's "relocation to embassies near the residence, considering that the investigations revealed a background of planning to seek refuge through a diplomatic representation", a declaration said.

The court filing underscores that the United States embassy in the national capital, Brasilia, is located around approximately 13 kilometers from his dwelling.

International Reactions

Bolsonaro's legal woes have provoked anger from fellow right-wing populist US President President Trump, leading him to enact a half-rate duty on goods coming from Brazil.

Bolsonaro is being kept in a federal law enforcement building in Brasilia and will undergo a custody hearing on Sunday.

Recent Judicial Appeals

It was only on last Friday that the his legal team asked the High Court to permit him to fulfill his full incarceration period under house arrest, with digital surveillance.

They also asked that Bolsonaro be permitted to leave his home for medical treatment, saying he needed frequent medical attention for respiratory ailments and other ailments.

Details of Guilty Verdict

Bolsonaro was determined responsible of leading a scheme aimed at keeping him in power after he failed to win the presidential race to his political opponent, President Lula.

Top judicial officials said that he had knowledge of a scheme which involved plans to murder Lula and his vice-presidential running mate, Alckmin, and to detain and kill Alexandre de Moraes - the top judicial official who has been managing the former president's case.

The scheme was thwarted because it failed to get the support of the armed forces officials. The current president was inaugurated without problem on the first day of 2023.

But a following week, on the eighth of January, many Bolsonaro supporters invaded and destroyed official structures in the federal district, Brasília.

The law enforcement stepped in and around fifteen hundred individuals were arrested.

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 time, Bolsonaro's lawyers called the 27 years and three months sentence unreasonably severe".

He was also banned from running for public office until twenty-sixty - a decade minus two years after the end of his sentence.

The one-time head of state called the trial a "witch hunt and said it was aimed at blocking him running in the 2026 national vote.