Brazil’s Bolsonaro goes to hospital for the second time since his coup trial conviction

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro went to the hospital Tuesday for the second time since his conviction last week on coup attempt charges, his latest ailments including vomiting and low blood pressure, his son said.

The right-wing politician went to the same hospital in Brasilia on Sunday because of skin lesions, and doctors said at the time that tests revealed iron-deficiency anemia and signs of a recent pneumonia.

On Tuesday, Bolsonaro felt unwell “with a severe bout of hiccups, vomiting, and low blood pressure,” his son, Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, wrote on X, adding that police had taken him to the hospital.

A panel of Supreme Court justices on Thursday found the ex-leader guilty of attempting a coup to illegally hang onto power despite his 2022 electoral defeat to current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. They sentenced him to 27 years and three months in prison.

The sentence doesn’t immediately send Bolsonaro to prison. The court panel has up to 60 days to publish the ruling after the decision. Once it does, Bolsonaro’s lawyers have five days to file motions for clarification.

Bolsonaro has denied wrongdoing and said he is the victim of political persecution. U.S. President Donald Trump has agreed and called the trial a “witch hunt,” and in July he imposed tariffs of 50% on Brazilian good citing the case against Bolsonaro, among other issues.

The 70-year-old former president since early August has been under house arrest imposed by the justice overseeing the case, Alexandre de Moraes, who said Bolsonaro had violated precautionary measures imposed on him for the trial. Bolsonaro already had been wearing an ankle monitor.

In late August, de Moraes increased security measures further and ordered that police conduct inspections of all vehicles leaving Bolsonaro’s residence and monitor the exterior of the house.

Bolsonaro has been hospitalized multiple times since being stabbed at a campaign event before the 2018 presidential election. In April, he underwent surgery for a bowel obstruction.

Lawyers for Bolsonaro are expected to put his ill health forward as an argument in a plea for house arrest, rather than obliging him to serve the sentence in a detention center.