Jailhouse Surprise: The Ex-President Bolsonaro Confronts Life in Prison
He battled the legal system and justice prevailed.
A couple of months following being handed a 27-year sentence for seeking to “annihilate” Brazil’s political system, one-time leader Jair Bolsonaro now appears jail-bound.
Anticipated Incarceration
The adjudicated instigator – who has been under residential detention in his mansion while a number of legal procedures and petitions play out – is broadly anticipated to be imprisoned in the coming days, amid growing talk that he will be transferred to a infamous high-security penitentiary.
Past Statements on Inmates
Over Bolsonaro’s long time in politics, the conservative former soldier showed minimal compassion for Brazil’s jailed individuals.
“Why should we offer those dirtbags a comfortable existence?” he once mused. “They ought to simply be screwed, period. That's my view.”
In another instance, Bolsonaro declared: “If you don’t want to finish in prison, the only thing required is not rape, abduction or rob.”
Incarceration Facility Speculation
Yet the idea of Bolsonaro himself landing in the Papuda prison maximum security prison in Brasília has horrified supporters, a group of four this week toured the complex in an apparent effort to discourage the supreme court from sending him there.
The senator, a lawmaker from Bolsonaro’s Liberal party who was one of the visitors, said he expected the 70-year-old leader to be incarcerated in the next 10 days and was concerned his location could be Papuda.
Lucas claimed Bolsonaro’s serious intestinal problems – the outcome of a near-fatal stabbing during the 2018 presidential election race – implied it would be hazardous to keep the one-time head of state there. “His [health] situation is highly critical. He cannot to handle it if they send him to Papuda … It could be dreadful,” he added, who also worried about packed cells and the quality of jail cuisine.
During his tour Papuda, Lucas recalled observing cells accommodating 40 detainees: “That’s almost one square metre per prisoner.
“We conversed to the convicts and they protest, unsurprisingly, of the terrible meals,” added the senator.
Allies React
The senator isn't the sole person expressing views ahead of the one-time head of state's predicted incarceration.
Writing in a major daily, one more backer, the former government official Fábio Wajngarten, lamented the “severe” conclusion to Bolsonaro’s “flawless” time in office and asserted Brazil was about to witness “the greatest unfairness in its history”.
“It represents an unfairness that gnaws the spirits of many of Brazilians,” Wajngarten wrote.
Divided Public Reaction
It is possibly true considering the substantial support Bolsonaro retains on the right-wing. Yet his expected incarceration has also warmed the spirits of millions other people who feel he ought to be incarcerated for plotting to stop his successor from becoming president – and also plotting to have him killed.
Congressman Otoni, a representative for the current administration's political party, stated: “Nobody wishes Bolsonaro to be placed in a dark cell. Nobody wants Bolsonaro to be placed in solitary confinement. Nobody desires Bolsonaro to lack food or for him to have to lie on concrete. We desire him to get respectful care – but respectful care while incarcerated. He must not continue being his own prison warden for his whole life.”
Otoni was struck by how Bolsonaro backers, who have spent years applauding the tough treatment of inmates, had abruptly woken up to their privileges. “Only now has the far-right – which has consistently argued that basic rights were not for offenders – decided to visit a prison to discover what circumstances are truly like,” he stated.
“He is a lawbreaker,” Otoni insisted, but that did not mean he merited “humiliating, demeaning treatment”.
Possible Jail Environment
Despite talk that Bolsonaro could be transferred to Papuda, which presently houses about thousands of prisoners, his more likely location seems to be a close prison for officers and other “particular” prisoners known as Papudinha (Small Papuda).
Its cells are considerably more comfortable than those in the primary facility, although nonetheless a far cry from the comfort Bolsonaro had while occupying the impressive leader's home, around 12 miles away.
According to reports, the cell Bolsonaro could expect to reside in in Papudinha has about 260 square feet – approximately the size of vehicle spaces – and features a 12 sq metre WC with a bathing area and a 12 sq metre balcony. “Bolsonaro would be authorized to have a television and also a small fridge in his quarters as long as they were donated by his family,” the report stated.
Partisan Responses
The lawmaker denounced the rumoured idea to send the ex-president to Papuda as “a form of retaliation” on the part of the supreme court judge who presided over Bolsonaro’s proceedings and will rule on his fate in the {