Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered Jair Bolsonaro, the former president, to stay home most hours, defying President Trump’s demands that charges against Mr. Bolsonaro be dropped.
Brazil’s Supreme Court on Friday ordered former President Jair Bolsonaro to wear an ankle monitor, stay home during most hours and stay away from foreign embassies, a sign that the court believed he is liable to flee the country before his trial on charges that he attempted a coup after losing the 2022 election.
Brazilian federal police searched Mr. Bolsonaro’s residence and home on Friday morning, carrying out orders from the Supreme Court, according to two people familiar with the searches who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the operation. Brazilian media showed Mr. Bolsonaro arriving to a government facility on Friday morning to have an ankle monitor fitted on him.
Mr. Bolsonaro’s lawyer, Paulo Cunha Bueno, confirmed that the court ordered Mr. Bolsonaro to use an ankle monitor and barred him from using social media or communicating with his son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, who has been in Washington lobbying the Trump administration to intervene in his father’s case.
“Former President Jair Bolsonaro’s defense team was surprised and outraged by the imposition of severe precautionary measures against him, despite having complied with all court orders to date,” his lawyers said in a statement.
The order is a sharp escalation of Brazilian authorities’ sudden feud with President Trump over Mr. Bolsonaro’s case.
On Thursday evening, Mr. Trump posted online a letter he wrote to Mr. Bolsonaro, saying the criminal case against the former president was political persecution. He added that his planned 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian imports were to pressure Brazilian authorities to drop the charges.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
