Jair Bolsonaro has been taken into custody after being determined a "concrete flight risk" while under house arrest. The right-wing former Brazilian president was found guilty of plotting a military coup in September and sentenced to more than 27 years in prison, but remains under house arrest pending appeals.

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday told a judge that medicine-induced paranoia and hallucination caused him to tamper with an electronic ankle monitor, court records showed, a day after police took him into custody out of fear he might flee.

With Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro preparing to serve a 27-year sentence for attempting a coup, many families who lost loved ones to COVID-19 say the conviction offers a measure of vindication even though it is unrelated to his handling of the pandemic.

Police took Brazil’s convicted former president Jair Bolsonaro into custody early on Saturday after a supreme court judge said he was planning to escape from house arrest, days before the rightwinger was expected to start serving a 27-year jail sentence.

Jair Bolsonaro’s efforts to avoid jail went awry Saturday, when police detained the former Brazilian president after he took a soldering iron to a court-mandated ankle monitor and sparked fears that he planned to flee.