By News Agencies

Published On 28 Dec 2025

Brazil’s top court has issued house arrest orders for 10 people who were convicted and sentenced for participating in a plot to keep former President Jair Bolsonaro in power after his election defeat in 2022.

The decision by Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes on Saturday came after authorities in neighbouring Paraguay arrested a former police commander who had also been convicted in the plot, as he was trying to board a flight to El Salvador using a fake Paraguayan passport.

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Silvinei Vasques, the former director of Brazil’s federal highway police, was extradited to Brazil on Friday night. He was then placed in pre-trial detention.

According to Brazilian police, Vasques tore off his ankle monitor on Thursday and drove to Paraguay in a rental car.

The 10 people, who were subjected to house arrest orders on Saturday, had remained free despite their conviction because they were appealing their case.

They had faced cautionary measures, like the use of ankle monitors, or had been ordered to stay at the same location every night.

De Moraes said in his decision that the 10 officials helped plan the coup plot, sought legal justification for it, or spread disinformation on social media to help Bolsonaro stay in power.

Among them was Filipe Martins, a former adviser to Bolsonaro.

Martins’s lawyer, Jeffrey Chiquini, said on X that they would file an appeal.

“Filipe Martins had been wearing an electronic ankle monitor until today and wasn’t allowed to leave his city,” Chiquini said in a video posted on Instagram. “So, what changed?”

In addition to the house arrest order, the Supreme Court also banned the individuals from receiving visits, using social media or contacting others currently under investigation, the AFP news agency reported, citing a statement by the federal police.

They were also required to surrender their passports and firearm permits, the agency said.

In September, the Supreme Court found Bolsonaro guilty of conspiring to stay in power after losing the 2022 election to left-wing leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and handed him a 27-year prison sentence.

The 70-year-old former leader denies any wrongdoing.

Another ex-official convicted in the case is former intelligence chief Alexandre Ramagem, who fled to the United States.

Bolsonaro, who has been serving prison time since November, has been hospitalised since Wednesday.

After undergoing double hernia surgery on Thursday, his wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, said on Saturday that he was undergoing a procedure for persistent hiccups.

“It has been nine months of anguish and daily hiccups,” she said on social media.

The former president has been facing health problems since a stabbing in September 2018, during a presidential campaign event in the town of Juiz de Fora, in Minas Gerais state. Bolsonaro underwent various surgeries in the abdominal region after that stabbing incident, which had catapulted him as a frontrunner in that race.

The trials against the former president and several generals and police officers accused of participating in the plot have been closely followed in Brazil, where democracy was reinstated in 1985, after decades of military rule.

US President Donald Trump initially described the proceedings against ideological ally Bolsonaro as a “witch-hunt” and raised tariffs on Brazilian imports over Bolsonaro’s trial, which he described as an “international disgrace”.

The Trump administration had also placed financial sanctions against de Moraes, the lead judge in Bolsonaro’s trial. But the US government appears to have softened its stance following Bolsonaro’s conviction.

In November, Trump signed an executive order lowering tariffs on Brazilian beef and coffee, two of the country’s largest exports to the US.

Earlier this month, the US Treasury lifted sanctions against de Moraes and his wife, as both nations continue to engage in trade negotiations.