Former Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro has been ordered to wear an ankle monitor, authorities said, in a move he described as “a supreme humiliation”.
The development came as federal police conducted searches at his home and his party’s headquarters in Brasilia, in compliance with a Supreme Court order.
The order prohibits Mr Bolsonaro from leaving the house at night, communicating with foreign ambassadors and diplomats or approaching embassies.
The former president is also barred from using social media or contacting other individuals under investigation by the Supreme Federal Court, including his son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, a Brazilian politician who currently lives in the United States and is known for his close ties to US President Donald Trump.
Mr Bolsonaro is currently on trial at the Supreme Court accused of leading an alleged attempt to stage a coup to overturn the 2022 election in which he was defeated by left-wing president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
“It is a supreme humiliation,” Mr Bolsonaro told journalists in Brasilia after putting on the ankle monitoring. “I never thought about leaving Brazil, I never thought about going to an embassy, but the precautionary measures are because of that.”
On Thursday, Mr Trump wrote to Mr Bolsonaro describing his ally’s treatment by the Brazilian legal system as terrible and unjust.
“This trial should end immediately,” the US president said, adding that he “strongly voiced” his disapproval through his tariff policy.
The Supreme Court’s restrictions on Mr Bolsonaro are part of a second investigation against Eduardo for allegedly working with US authorities to impose sanctions against Brazilian officials.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is also the rapporteur of the case, said that the former president and his son’s recent actions were “blatant confessions of criminal conduct”, such as coercion during legal proceedings, obstruction of investigations and attacks on national sovereignty.
Live aerial footage from local broadcasters showed federal police vehicles outside Mr Bolsonaro’s residence in Brasilia.
Congressman Sostenes Cavalcante, the leader of Mr Bolsonaro’s party in the lower house, told the Associated Press that officers also searched Mr Bolsonaro’s office at the party’s headquarters. He described the operation as “another chapter in the persecution of conservatives and right-wing figures” in Brazil.
On Tuesday, Brazil’s prosecutor-general, Paulo Gonet, said in a report to the Supreme Court that the “evidence is clear: the defendant acted systematically, throughout his mandate and after his defeat at the polls, to incite insurrection and the destabilisation of the democratic rule of law”.
Mr Bolsonaro has described the trial on X as a “witch hunt”, echoing a term used by Mr Trump when he came to his South American ally’s defence last week.
Last week, Mr Trump imposed a 50% import tax on Brazil, directly tying the tariffs to Mr Bolsonaro’s trial.
The US president has hosted the former Brazilian president at his Mar-a-Lago resort when both were in power in 2020. Mr Trump compared the Brazilian’s situation to his own. On Tuesday, speaking to reporters at the White House, Mr Trump repeated the claim that the trial is a “witch hunt”.
