Brazilian ex-President Jair Bolsonaro leaves hospital after recovering from bowel surgery

SAO PAULO (AP) - Brazilian ex-President Jair Bolsonaro was discharged from the hospital Sunday three weeks after undergoing surgery for a bowel obstruction.

The medical team at the DF Star Hospital in Brasilia, the country’s capital, said that he left intensive care on Wednesday but spent the past days recovering before being released Sunday. His health condition is stable and he started on a liquid diet, his doctors said.

Bolsonaro appeared stiff and solemn as he walked outside. But his face brightened as he greeted a cheering crowd of supporters waving Brazilian flags and filming with their phones. "Hallelujah!” some shouted.

"This cap goes to our President,” said Ronaldo de Barretos, a supporter outside the hospital showing off a baseball cap that bore Bolsonaro's campaign slogan - "God, homeland, family and freedom."

Bolsonaro was admitted with severe abdominal pain to a hospital in Santa Cruz, a small city in Rio Grande do Norte, on April 11 and transferred to a hospital in the state's capital, Natal. His family later requested his transfer to Brasilia.

The right-wing leader’s intestinal obstruction is related to a stabbing injury he suffered in September 2018 as he campaigned for president. He has been in and out of hospitals since the attack and underwent multiple surgeries during his presidency, from 2019-2022.

Doctors described this latest surgery last month, his sixth, as the most difficult.

Before undergoing surgery, Bolsonaro had been preparing for a trip across northeast Brazil to promote his Liberal Party's right-wing agenda, eyeing next year's presidential election in Brazil, though he himself is barred from running. The region traditionally has been a political bastion of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro is expected to stand trial in the next few months at Brazil's Supreme Court for allegedly attempting to stage a coup in January 2023, with riots led by his supporters in Brasilia.