Updated November 22, 2025 at 10:21 AM PST

SAO PAULO — Brazil's federal police on Saturday arrested former president Jair Bolsonaro over suspicion he was plotting to escape and avoid starting a 27-year prison sentence for leading a coup attempt.

In a dramatic and unexpected twist in the final stage of a long and divisive criminal trial, federal agents entered Bolsonaro's house early Saturday under the order of a Supreme Court Justice to take the former president to the headquarters of the country's federal police in the capital, Brasilia.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversaw the case on Bolsonaro's attempt to keep the presidency after his defeat to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2022, ordered the preemptive arrest after saying the far-right leader's ankle monitor was violat

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