Brazil’s ex-president claims ‘hallucinations’ led to ankle device tampering
Former Brazilian president Jair Messias Bolsonaro, who remains under house arrest over a coup plot, says he was hallucinating from the effects of medicines prescribed by his doctors when he altered his ankle tracking device unit.
Bolsonaro was detained on Sunday after using a soldering iron to detach the electronic tracking device he was wearing ordered by Brazil’s Supreme Court.
"[Bolsonaro] said he had ‘hallucinations’ that there was some wiretap in the ankle monitoring, so he tried to uncover it,” said Assistant Judge Luciana Sorrentino in a court document published shortly after the hearing with the former president.
"The witness stated that, around midnight, he tampered with the ankle bracelet, then 'came to his senses' and stopped using the soldering iron, at which point he informed the officers guarding him," according to the court document.
The judge overseeing Sunday's hearing decided to keep Bolsonaro in police custody, concluding that the officers had followed all applicable laws during the arrest.
Bolsonaro is being held in a 12-square-meter cell at federal police headquarters in Brasilia, with a bed, TV, air conditioning and private bathroom. A panel of Supreme Court judges will convene on Monday to consider his case.
His lawyers on Sunday repeated their request for the right-wing former president to be kept under "humanitarian house arrest," citing his “chronic health issues.”
They said the events that night were caused by his "illogical behavior" due to an unfortunate combination of medication, age and stress, and that there was no risk of him fleeing.
The former president, who was stabbed in the abdomen during a 2018 campaign event, has a history of hospitalizations and surgeries related to the attack.
The former right-wing leader was sentenced to 27 years in prison in September for attempting a coup to remain in the presidency after his 2022 electoral defeat to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Instead of being sent to prison, Brazil’s Supreme Court had allowed him to go into house arrest while he appealed his conviction.
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