Jailhouse Surprise: Brazil's Ex-President Jair Bolsonaro Confronts Life Behind Bars
He contested the law and the legal system triumphed.
Sixty days after receiving a twenty-seven-year sentence for attempting to “annihilate” Brazil’s democracy, one-time leader Jair Bolsonaro finally appears destined for incarceration.
Expected Incarceration
The convicted instigator – who had been subject to residential detention in his residence while a series of legal procedures and challenges play out – is broadly anticipated to be imprisoned in the coming days, during mounting speculation that he will be transferred to a infamous high-security penitentiary.
Past Comments on Inmates
During Bolsonaro’s 40-year time in politics, the conservative ex- paratrooper exhibited scant sympathy for Brazil’s inmates.
“For what reason must we give those dirtbags a easy time?” he once mused. “They should just get messed, full-fucking-stop. That’s what I reckon.”
In another instance, Bolsonaro proclaimed: “Unless you desire to wind up behind bars, you simply need is not rape, abduction or theft.”
Jail Location Debate
Yet the prospect of Bolsonaro himself ending up in the Papuda maximum security prison in Brasília has appalled allies, several of whom this week visited the prison in an apparent effort to dissuade the high court from transferring him there.
Senator Lucas, a senator from Bolsonaro’s political party who was among that group, stated he expected the septuagenarian leader to be imprisoned in the coming fortnight and feared his location could be Papuda.
Lucas claimed Bolsonaro’s acute gut problems – the outcome of a almost deadly stabbing during the 2018 presidential campaign – implied it would be hazardous to keep the ex-leader there. “His [health] situation is very grave. He cannot to cope if they take him to Papuda … It will be awful,” he added, who also expressed concern about packed cells and the condition of prison meals.
During his tour Papuda, Lucas recalled seeing cells accommodating four dozen prisoners: “It's virtually one square metre per inmate.
“We talked to the convicts and they grumble, of course, of the horrible cuisine,” continued the senator.
Allies Speak Out
He is not the sole person expressing views ahead of the former president’s anticipated incarceration.
Penning in a prominent publication, a different supporter, the former communications minister Fábio Wajngarten, bemoaned the “harsh” conclusion to Bolsonaro’s “flawless” public service and asserted Brazil was about to see “the greatest wrong in its past”.
“It is an wrong that gnaws the hearts of millions Brazilian citizens,” Wajngarten wrote.
Varied Public Response
This could be accurate considering the significant backing Bolsonaro maintains on the right-wing. However his predicted jailing has also warmed the hearts of many others who feel he deserves to be imprisoned for plotting to block the incoming president from assuming office – and also conspiring to have him murdered.
The lawmaker, a politician for the current president's Workers’ party, said: “Not a soul desires Bolsonaro to be put in a dungeon. No one wishes Bolsonaro to be placed in isolation. Nobody wants Bolsonaro to go hungry or for him to have to rest on hard ground. We desire him to receive respectful handling – but proper treatment while incarcerated. He must not continue being his own prison warden for his lifetime.”
The congressman noted how Bolsonaro supporters, who have for a long time celebrating the harsh treatment of prisoners, had abruptly woken up to their entitlements. “Only now has the conservative fringe – which has always argued that civil liberties were not for criminals – opted to tour a penitentiary to discover what circumstances are really like,” he stated.
“Bolsonaro is a offender,” the congressman maintained, but that did not mean he earned “humiliating, degrading treatment”.
Likely Prison Conditions
Despite rumors that Bolsonaro could be sent to Papuda, which now contains about fourteen thousand inmates, his expected location seems to be a nearby jail for law enforcement and other “particular” prisoners referred to as Papudinha (Minor Papuda).
His potential cell are far more adequate than those in the primary facility, although still a world away from the opulence Bolsonaro enjoyed while living in the stunning official residence, about 12 miles away.
Based on reports, the room Bolsonaro could likely occupy in Papudinha measures about 260 square feet – roughly the size of a couple of car spots – and includes a 12 sq metre bathroom with a bathing area and a 12 square meter balcony. “Bolsonaro would be permitted to have a TV and also a cooler in his cell as long as they were provided by his relatives,” sources suggested.
Partisan Responses
Senator Lucas criticized the rumoured plan to send the former leader to Papuda as “a form of revenge” on the part of the judicial authority who led Bolsonaro’s coup trial and will rule on his outcome in the {