Brazil’s Bolsonaro ordered to wear ankle bracelet

Court also barred former president, a Trump ally, from speaking to foreign officials.

Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered former President Jair Bolsonaro to wear an electronic ankle tag and barred him from speaking to foreign officials, after President Trump pressured the country’s leaders to drop criminal charges against him.

Bolsonaro, a former army captain-turned-conservative leader, is on trial and faces jail time as early as this year after police accused him of plotting a military takeover of the country in 2022 and conspiring to kill leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The feet of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro are photographed as he stops to speak with the press after the Supreme Court ordered him to be fitted with an electronic ankle monitor. Picture: AP /Eraldo Peres

Brazil’s Supreme Court said Friday that the police were responding to efforts by Bolsonaro and his son Eduardo, who lives in the US, to lobby the Trump administration to intervene in the criminal case and impose sanctions on the case’s top justice.

Bolsonaro is also forbidden to leave his home at night or on weekends and isn’t allowed to go near foreign embassies or consulates, the Supreme Court said, accusing him of endangering the country’s sovereignty.

“National sovereignty cannot, must not, and will never be desecrated, negotiated, or extorted, for it is one of the foundations of the Federative Republic of Brazil,” the Supreme Court said.

Lawyers for Bolsonaro expressed “surprise and indignation” over the measures and said he has always followed orders from authorities. Bolsonaro denies wrongdoing related to all the charges he faces and says he is the victim of a political campaign by da Silva’s government and the country’s courts.

Trump said last week that he would charge a 50 per cent tariff on Brazilian goods starting on Aug. 1, citing what he said was a witch hunt against Bolsonaro, one of his closest foreign allies, whose legal battles he said mirrored his own in the US.

“I have seen the terrible treatment you are receiving at the hands of an unjust system turned against you,” Trump wrote to Bolsonaro in a letter he posted on social media on Thursday. “This trial should end immediately!”

But Trump’s intervention has sparked widespread anger in Brazil and boosted support for da Silva, the leftist president.

“No gringo is going to give orders to the president of the Republic,” da Silva said Thursday.

Wall Street Journal