🔗 Share this article

He battled the legal system and the legal system won.

Sixty days following receiving a quarter-century plus sentence for attempting to “destroy” Brazil’s democracy, one-time leader Jair Bolsonaro finally appears headed to prison.

Imminent Imprisonment

The found-guilty instigator – who has been subject to home confinement in his mansion while a series of court processes and appeals play out – is widely expected to be jailed in the coming days, amidst growing talk that he will be moved to a well-known top-security facility.

Historical Statements on Convicts

Throughout Bolsonaro’s 40-year public life, the right-wing former soldier displayed scant compassion for Brazil’s jailed individuals.

“What’s the need to give these scoundrels a easy time?” he once pondered. “They ought to simply be messed, period. That's my opinion.”

At another time, Bolsonaro declared: “Unless you desire to end up there, you simply need is to avoid sexual assault, kidnap or rob.”

Incarceration Facility Debate

However the prospect of Bolsonaro himself landing in the Papuda top-security prison in Brasília has appalled allies, four of whom this week visited the prison in an seeming attempt to prevent the high court from banishing him there.

Izalci Lucas, a lawmaker from Bolsonaro’s Liberal party who was one of the visitors, stated he predicted the septuagenarian leader to be jailed in the next 10 days and was concerned his location could be Papuda.

The senator argued Bolsonaro’s acute digestive ailments – the result of a almost deadly stabbing during the 2018 presidential election race – meant it would be dangerous to keep the ex-leader there. “His health is extremely serious. He won’t be able to manage if they move him to Papuda … It will be terrible,” said the senator, who also voiced anxiety about overcrowded cells and the quality of jail cuisine.

During his tour Papuda, Lucas recalled witnessing cells containing forty detainees: “It's virtually one meter squared per detainee.

“We conversed to the inmates and they protest, of course, of the terrible meals,” continued the senator.

Backers React

Lucas is not the lone figure expressing views prior to the former president’s expected incarceration.

Writing in a prominent newspaper, a different supporter, the ex- cabinet member Fábio Wajngarten, deplored the “severe” finale to Bolsonaro’s “impeccable” time in office and asserted Brazil was about to see “the biggest political injustice in its history”.

“It represents an wrong that eats away the hearts of many Brazilian citizens,” he stated.

Mixed Popular Reaction

This could be accurate due to the considerable support Bolsonaro retains on the right-wing. However his anticipated imprisonment has also warmed the feelings of many others who believe he deserves to be imprisoned for plotting to stop the elected leader from becoming president – and additionally scheming to have him assassinated.

Reimont Otoni, a politician for the sitting administration's Workers’ party, commented: “No one wants Bolsonaro to be put in a dark cell. Nobody wishes Bolsonaro to be placed in isolation. No one wants Bolsonaro not to be fed or for him to have to lie on concrete. We desire him to receive proper care – but proper handling while incarcerated. He must not continue being his own prison warden for his entire life.”

Otoni was struck by how Bolsonaro supporters, who have spent years celebrating the tough conditions of prisoners, had suddenly woken up to their entitlements. “Recently has the far-right – which has consistently claimed that civil liberties should not be for offenders – decided to visit a jail to discover what situations are really like,” he remarked.

“The former president is a offender,” he affirmed, but that did not mean he earned “humiliating, insulting conduct”.

Likely Incarceration Conditions

In spite of talk that Bolsonaro could be transferred to Papuda, which presently holds about thousands of detainees, his probable location looks to be a close prison for law enforcement and other “special” inmates known as Papudinha (Minor Papuda).

Its cells are far more pleasant than those in the primary facility, although still a distant from the luxury Bolsonaro had while residing in the spectacular leader's home, around 20 kilometers away.

Based on sources, the room Bolsonaro could likely reside in in Papudinha is about 24 sq metres – roughly the area of a couple of car spots – and includes a 12 sq metre bathroom with a bathing area and a 12 sq metre veranda. “The ex-president might be permitted to have a TV and additionally a minibar in his quarters as long as they were donated by his relatives,” the report indicated.

Political Comments

Senator Lucas denounced the rumoured plan to send the former leader to Papuda as “a form of retaliation” on the part of the supreme court judge who presided over Bolsonaro’s proceedings and will decide his future in the {