Jailhouse Surprise: The FormerPresident Jair Bolsonaro Confronts Time Behind Bars
He contested the law and justice prevailed.
Sixty days subsequent to being handed a twenty-seven-year sentence for seeking to “annihilate” the nation's political system, former president Jair Bolsonaro at last appears destined for incarceration.
Anticipated Jailing
The convicted instigator – who has been subject to home confinement in his mansion while a series of court processes and petitions play out – is widely expected to be imprisoned in the near future, during mounting speculation that he will be sent to a infamous maximum security facility.
Past Comments on Convicts
Throughout Bolsonaro’s 40-year time in politics, the far-right ex- soldier showed scant mercy for the country's jailed individuals.
“Why should we offer these dirtbags a good life?” he previously wondered. “They ought to simply be messed, end of story. That's my opinion.”
At another time, Bolsonaro proclaimed: “If you don’t want to wind up in prison, the only thing required is to avoid sexual assault, kidnap or rob.”
Incarceration Facility Discussion
Yet the idea of Bolsonaro himself winding up in the Papuda prison maximum security prison in Brasília has horrified allies, a group of four this week visited the prison in an apparent bid to discourage the judiciary from sending him there.
Izalci Lucas, a politician from Bolsonaro’s allied group who was one of the visitors, said he predicted the elderly politician to be incarcerated in the next 10 days and feared his location could be Papuda.
He asserted Bolsonaro’s acute gut issues – the consequence of a life-threatening assault during the last election race – implied it would be dangerous to keep the ex-leader there. “His health is very grave. He will not be able to handle it if they move him to Papuda … It could be awful,” he commented, who also worried about overcrowded cells and the condition of jail cuisine.
While visiting Papuda, Lucas remembered seeing cells containing forty inmates: “It's virtually one square meter per detainee.
“We conversed to the prisoners and they complain, naturally, of the terrible meals,” added the senator.
Supporters Speak Out
Lucas is not the lone figure expressing views ahead of the ex-leader's anticipated incarceration.
Authoring in a leading newspaper, another ally, the former government official Fábio Wajngarten, bemoaned the “severe” end to Bolsonaro’s “impeccable” time in office and alleged Brazil was about to experience “the biggest wrong in its past”.
“This is an wrong that erodes the hearts of many of Brazilians,” the former minister said.
Mixed General Reaction
This could be correct given the substantial following Bolsonaro maintains on the Brazilian right. However his anticipated incarceration has also warmed the hearts of millions other people who believe he should be jailed for planning to stop his successor from becoming president – and also plotting to have him murdered.
Congressman Otoni, a congressman for the sitting president's political party, said: “Nobody wants Bolsonaro to be placed in a dungeon. Nobody wants Bolsonaro to be sent in solitary confinement. Nobody wants Bolsonaro to go hungry or for him to have to sleep on the floor. We wish him to obtain respectful care – but respectful care while incarcerated. He cannot carry on being his personal jailer for his entire life.”
The congressman noted how Bolsonaro backers, who have spent years applauding the harsh handling of convicts, had abruptly become aware to their rights. “Just now has the far-right – which has repeatedly asserted that civil liberties should not be for criminals – decided to inspect a penitentiary to find out what circumstances are truly like,” he said.
“Bolsonaro is a criminal,” the congressman maintained, but that did not mean he earned “humiliating, insulting handling”.
Possible Prison Conditions
Regardless of speculation that Bolsonaro could be transferred to Papuda, which presently holds about fourteen thousand detainees, his more likely destination seems to be a adjacent jail for officers and other “special” inmates known as Papudinha (Little Papuda).
His potential cell are considerably more adequate than those in the larger jail, although nonetheless a far cry from the opulence Bolsonaro enjoyed while residing in the spectacular presidential palace, approximately 20 kilometers away.
As per sources, the cell Bolsonaro could likely reside in in Papudinha is about 24 square meters – roughly the dimensions of a couple of car spots – and includes a 12 sq metre WC with a bathing area and a 12 sq metre balcony. “He could be allowed to have a TV and even a small fridge in his quarters as long as they were supplied by his family,” sources stated.
Ideological Reactions
He denounced the speculated plan to send the former leader to Papuda as “a form of payback” on the part of the judicial authority who presided over Bolsonaro’s legal case and will rule on his future in the {