Bolsonaro is discharged after two weeks in the hospital and goes under house arrest

Brasilia.- Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, convicted of plotting a coup, was discharged this Friday after two weeks of hospitalization for acute pneumonia and began to serve 90 days of house arrest by order of the Supreme Court.

"The last two days were calm and without problems", although "we cannot say that he is cured; he will continue treatment at home", stated Brasil Caiado, one of the former president's doctors, when announcing his discharge at the hospital door. The 71-year-old far-right leader will remain at home for the next three months and, after that period, the Supreme Court will re-evaluate whether to maintain the home confinement or return him to prison. The former president had been admitted to the DF Star Hospital in Brasilia since March 13, when he was urgently transferred from prison with a serious case of bacterial bilateral pneumonia, caused by a bronchoaspiration episode.

He was in an intensive care unit until last Monday.

The former head of state (2019-2022), who is serving a 27-year prison sentence for coup-mongering, gradually improved and the day before the medical bulletin indicated that he was "without signs of acute infection". From now on, you will continue with oral medications, motor physiotherapy sessions and cardiopulmonary rehabilitation at home, in Brasilia, according to Caiado Brasil.

Temporary Home Detention with Restrictions

During these two weeks, the family and its political allies have insisted on the need for Bolsonaro to be granted "humanitarian" house arrest due to his health condition, which resulted in a new appeal by his lawyers to the Supreme Court. In parallel, Judge Alexandre de Moraes, responsible for the case, met with the eldest son of the former president and presidential candidate, Flávio Bolsonaro, and, subsequently, with the wife of the ultra leader, Michelle Bolsonaro.

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So, last Monday, the Prosecution spoke out, for the first time, in favor of granting the benefit to the retired Army captain, because in its opinion he requires "constant and careful attention". In the opinion of the Public Prosecutor's Office, house arrest allows for providing "the essential care for the integral, timely monitoring of the former president's health condition." One day later, De Moraes ruled in favor of Bolsonaro, but limited the house arrest to 90 days and imposed harsh restrictions. The former president will have to wear an electronic ankle monitor, as he already used between August and November 2025 - and which he tried to break in an alleged escape attempt - and will not be able to use either the cell phone or social networks directly or through third parties. In addition, he will only be able to receive visits from his lawyers, doctors, and his children with the aim of "safeguarding the necessary controlled environment" and avoiding future infections, according to the Supreme Court. Jair Bolsonaro has been suffering from various medical problems that he and his entourage attribute to the stab wound he suffered in the abdomen during the 2018 election campaign and which has forced him to undergo surgery several times. Among those disorders are recurrent hiccups that lead to vomiting, which would be behind this latest bilateral bacterial pneumonia, according to the medical team.

About a hundred days in prison and three hospital visits

Bolsonaro had been held since the end of last November, first in a special room of the Federal Police Superintendence in Brasilia and, since January, in a penitentiary complex in the Brazilian capital, where he came to have a larger space. In those one hundred days approximately, the former ruler went to the hospital up to three times: the first to undergo surgery again in the abdomen; the second to have tests after falling in his cell and hitting his head; and this third time for pneumonia. The far-right leader was sentenced on September 11th by the Supreme Court for "leading" a coup plot with the intention of "perpetuating himself in power", after losing the 2022 elections to the current ruler, the progressive Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.