Jailhouse Surprise: The FormerPresident Jair Bolsonaro Faces Life Behind Bars
He battled justice and justice triumphed.
Two months following being handed a quarter-century plus sentence for seeking to “annihilate” the nation's democratic institutions, ex-president Jair Bolsonaro finally appears jail-bound.
Anticipated Incarceration
The adjudicated plotter – who has been subject to house arrest in his residence while a number of judicial steps and challenges unfold – is widely expected to be imprisoned in the near future, amidst mounting speculation that he will be sent to a infamous top-security penitentiary.
Historical Comments on Convicts
Throughout Bolsonaro’s 40-year public life, the conservative former paratrooper exhibited minimal compassion for the country's prison population.
“For what reason must we offer these scoundrels a good life?” he once pondered. “They should just get messed, full-fucking-stop. That’s what I reckon.”
On another occasion, Bolsonaro declared: “If you don’t want to finish there, all you have to do is to avoid sexual assault, kidnap or theft.”
Jail Facility Discussion
However the possibility of Bolsonaro himself ending up in the Papuda prison maximum security prison in Brasília has appalled backers, several of whom this week inspected the facility in an seeming attempt to discourage the judiciary from sending him there.
Izalci Lucas, a lawmaker from Bolsonaro’s political party who was among that group, said he anticipated the 70-year-old leader to be jailed in the coming fortnight and was concerned his assigned prison could be Papuda.
Lucas claimed Bolsonaro’s acute intestinal ailments – the consequence of a almost deadly assault during the 2018 presidential election race – signified it would be hazardous to keep the former president there. “His [health] situation is highly critical. He won’t be able to handle it if they move him to Papuda … It would be awful,” he added, who also worried about cramped cells and the condition of prison meals.
When inspecting Papuda, Lucas remembered observing cells containing four dozen detainees: “It's almost one square meter per detainee.
“We conversed to the inmates and they protest, unsurprisingly, of the awful meals,” added the senator.
Allies React
Lucas is not the only voice expressing views ahead of the former president’s expected incarceration.
Writing in a major publication, a different supporter, the former communications minister Fábio Wajngarten, lamented the “brutal” end to Bolsonaro’s “impeccable” political career and asserted Brazil was about to witness “the greatest unfairness in its past”.
“This is an unfairness that eats away the hearts of millions Brazilian citizens,” he stated.
Divided Popular Response
This could be correct given the significant following Bolsonaro maintains on the Brazilian right. But his expected jailing has also pleased the spirits of numerous individuals who think he ought to be imprisoned for conspiring to stop the incoming president from becoming president – and even plotting to have him murdered.
The lawmaker, a politician for the incumbent president's political party, said: “Not a soul wishes Bolsonaro to be placed in a dungeon. Not a soul desires Bolsonaro to be placed in isolation. Not a soul desires Bolsonaro to lack food or for him to have to lie on concrete. We want him to receive proper care – but dignified handling behind bars. He cannot persist being his own prison warden for his lifetime.”
The congressman noted how Bolsonaro backers, who have spent years applauding the severe treatment of convicts, had unexpectedly realized to their rights. “Recently has the conservative fringe – which has repeatedly asserted that human rights are not for offenders – opted to inspect a jail to learn what conditions are truly like,” he remarked.
“Bolsonaro is a lawbreaker,” he affirmed, but that did not mean he merited “degrading, insulting conduct”.
Potential Incarceration Conditions
Regardless of talk that Bolsonaro could be moved to Papuda, which presently holds about fourteen thousand prisoners, his expected assigned facility seems to be a close jail for police officers and other “unique” inmates referred to as Papudinha (Little Papuda).
Its cells are much more pleasant than those in the primary facility, although nevertheless a world away from the opulence Bolsonaro experienced while living in the spectacular presidential palace, about 12 miles away.
As per information, the room Bolsonaro could likely reside in in Papudinha measures about 24 square meters – about the size of vehicle spaces – and features a 12 sq metre WC with a bathing area and a 12 sq metre terrace. “The ex-president might be allowed to have a TV and also a small fridge in his room as long as they were donated by his relatives,” the report stated.
Partisan Comments
He criticized the rumoured proposal to send the one-time head of state to Papuda as “a type of retaliation” on the part of the presiding magistrate who presided over Bolsonaro’s coup trial and will determine his outcome in the {