Brazil’s Public Ministry (MP) will not ask the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court (STF) to terminate the house arrest of former President Jair Bolsonaro following the seizure of a pistol that belonged to him.
The MP informed the STF that the seizure of a weapon belonging to the former head of state (2019–2022)—which was found in the possession of one of his bodyguards—does not constitute a serious crime that would impact the extension of his house arrest.
Bolsonaro is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence for an attempted coup d’état and has been under house arrest in Brasília since March to recover from pneumonia. The initial three-month period for this arrangement expired on Thursday.
“Classifying a crime as serious requires more than simply applying the law to the act; it demands an analysis of the impact of the illicit conduct on the legal system, as well as on the purpose and intent of the criminal execution,” declared Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet.
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Gonet was responding to a request from STF Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who had given the MP 48 hours to issue its stance on the matter.
The justice believed that the former president might have committed a serious offense due to the “illegal possession of an instrument capable of causing physical harm to another person” while serving house arrest.
Bolsonaro gave a statement on Tuesday to the Federal District Civil Police, confirming ownership of the weapon and claiming that he “had three women [his wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, his stepdaughter, and his daughter] at home and could not remain unarmed.”
On June 15, during a routine traffic stop in Brasília, police seized a 9mm Glock pistol with a magazine, which was registered under the former head of state’s name.
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The man transporting the firearm identified himself as a member of Bolsonaro’s security detail. He claimed he was taking the weapon to be repaired.
Jair Bolsonaro’s defense team argued that the security staff had rendered the weapon inoperable without his knowledge due to medications “that could affect his cognition,” according to the court filing reviewed by the France-Presse news agency. Bolsonaro’s lawyers further added that the former president had detected a malfunction in the mechanism and handed the firearm over to an army non-commissioned officer for examination.
Back in November, Bolsonaro was detained after attempting to damage his electronic ankle monitor with a soldering iron, an incident the court interpreted as an escape attempt. At the time, his defense lawyers similarly argued that the episode was due to “mental confusion” caused by his medications.
