Police took Brazil’s convicted former president Jair Bolsonaro into custody early on Saturday after a supreme court judge said he was planning to escape from house arrest, days before the rightwinger was expected to start serving a 27-year jail sentence.
Bolsonaro, an ally of US President Donald Trump, was convicted in September of plotting a coup with top generals in 2022, during his final months in power, to overturn an election defeat.
Trump described Bolsonaro’s prosecution as a witch-hunt, imposed 50 per cent tariffs on Brazil and sanctioned the supreme court justice in charge of the trial, plunging relations between the two biggest nations in the Americas into crisis.