Jailhouse Surprise: The FormerPresident Bolsonaro Faces Life in Prison
He battled justice and the legal system triumphed.
Two months following receiving a quarter-century plus sentence for seeking to “annihilate” the nation's democracy, former president Jair Bolsonaro now seems headed to prison.
Anticipated Jailing
The convicted plotter – who has been living under home confinement in his residence while a number of legal procedures and appeals proceed – is largely predicted to be incarcerated in the next few days, amid increasing speculation that he will be sent to a well-known high-security prison.
Previous Remarks on Convicts
During Bolsonaro’s long time in politics, the conservative former soldier exhibited minimal mercy for Brazil’s jailed individuals.
“Why should we offer those lowlifes a comfortable existence?” he once mused. “They ought to simply be messed, end of story. That's my view.”
On another occasion, Bolsonaro declared: “If you don’t want to end up there, the only thing required is to avoid sexual assault, abduction or rob.”
Jail Location Discussion
However the idea of Bolsonaro himself ending up in the Papuda prison maximum security prison in Brasília has shocked backers, a group of four this week visited the prison in an seeming attempt to dissuade the supreme court from transferring him there.
Izalci Lucas, a lawmaker from Bolsonaro’s Liberal party who was among that group, stated he predicted the septuagenarian figure to be jailed in the coming fortnight and was concerned his location could be Papuda.
He asserted Bolsonaro’s severe digestive ailments – the consequence of a almost deadly stabbing during the 2018 presidential election race – implied it would be hazardous to keep the former president there. “His [health] situation is very grave. He cannot to cope if they move him to Papuda … It could be terrible,” said the senator, who also worried about cramped cells and the standard of prison meals.
During his tour Papuda, Lucas recalled seeing cells accommodating 40 detainees: “That’s practically one meter squared per inmate.
“We spoke to the inmates and they protest, unsurprisingly, of the awful food,” continued the senator.
Supporters React
He is not the lone figure expressing views ahead of the ex-leader's predicted detention.
Writing in a leading daily, a different supporter, the ex- communications minister Fábio Wajngarten, deplored the “harsh” end to Bolsonaro’s “flawless” public service and claimed Brazil was about to see “the biggest wrong in its history”.
“It is an unfairness that eats away the hearts of countless Brazilian citizens,” Wajngarten wrote.
Mixed General Response
This could be true due to the considerable backing Bolsonaro maintains on the right-wing. Yet his expected jailing has also pleased the feelings of many others who think he deserves to be jailed for planning to stop the incoming president from taking power – and additionally plotting to have him murdered.
Congressman Otoni, a politician for the current president's Workers’ party, said: “Not a soul wishes Bolsonaro to be sent in a hole. Not a soul wants Bolsonaro to be placed in isolation. No one wishes Bolsonaro not to be fed or for him to have to lie on concrete. We want him to get proper handling – but respectful care behind bars. He must not continue being his personal jailer for his lifetime.”
He observed how Bolsonaro backers, who have long praising the severe treatment of convicts, had abruptly realized to their entitlements. “Only now has the far-right – which has consistently argued that basic rights should not be for lawbreakers – chosen to inspect a jail to discover what situations are truly like,” he remarked.
“Bolsonaro is a offender,” he affirmed, but that did not mean he earned “humiliating, demeaning conduct”.
Likely Incarceration Facilities
In spite of speculation that Bolsonaro could be transferred to Papuda, which now houses about 14,000 inmates, his expected destination looks to be a adjacent prison for police officers and other “unique” detainees known as Papudinha (Minor Papuda).
The accommodations are considerably more adequate than those in the larger jail, although still a world away from the opulence Bolsonaro experienced while occupying the stunning official residence, about 20 kilometers away.
Based on information, the cell Bolsonaro could expect to occupy in Papudinha has about 260 square feet – approximately the size of a couple of car spots – and features a 130 square foot WC with a water facility and a 130 square foot terrace. “He could be authorized to have a TV and additionally a minibar in his quarters as long as they were supplied by his family,” sources suggested.
Ideological Comments
Senator Lucas condemned the speculated proposal to send the one-time head of state to Papuda as “a type of payback” on the part of the supreme court judge who presided over Bolsonaro’s coup trial and will decide his fate in the {