Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro rejected accusations before the Supreme Court (STF) this Friday about his intention to leave the country after an asylum application document addressed to the Argentine Presidency was found on a cell phone confiscated by the Federal Police. He took the opportunity to demand the revocation of the house arrest order against him.
“The police authorities evidently know, as is well known, that to consider pretrial detention, there must be a contemporaneous fact. But even so, they only have one document, which they recognize as a simple old draft sent by a third party, in addition to the undeniable confirmation that the request was not fulfilled,” the former president’s lawyers explained in statements reported by the Brazilian News Agency.
Thus, Bolsonaro’s defense team has requested the revocation of his house arrest or, failing that, “the urgent resolution of the amparo appeal filed by the defense on August 6,” arguing that their client has always respected the precautionary measures—such as the ban on leaving the country and using social media—ordered by the Supreme Court.
These statements come after Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes established a 48-hour deadline on Wednesday for Bolsonaro’s lawyers to comment on the asylum application document found by the Federal Police, which had been stored on the former president’s cell phone since 2024.
Contrary to the arguments of the former president’s defense team, De Moraes—the rapporteur in the case—requested explanations for what he considered to be a “significant risk of flight,” as well as for the “repeated failures to comply with the precautionary measures imposed” and “the reiteration of illegal conduct.”
The day before, Jair Bolsonaro—under house arrest since the beginning of this month—was charged by the Federal Police along with one of his sons, Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, with attempting to obstruct the investigation into the former president’s coup d’état case.
De Moraes’ decision came after the Federal Police concluded their investigations into Eduardo Bolsonaro’s actions in Washington to promote retaliatory measures against the Brazilian government and judiciary, through alleged funding of up to two million reais (300,000 euros) to campaign through his son in the United States to hinder the coup d’état case.
Thus, the Brazilian police revealed that the former president considered requesting political asylum in Argentina, also headed by the far-right leader Javier Milei, after finding the aforementioned document on his phone, in which he claimed to be the victim of “persecution in (his) country of origin for primarily political reasons and crimes.”
