🔗 Share this article

He battled the law and the law triumphed.

Two months following getting a twenty-seven-year sentence for seeking to “destroy” the nation's political system, ex-president Jair Bolsonaro at last appears headed to prison.

Expected Incarceration

The found-guilty instigator – who's been living under residential detention in his estate while a number of judicial steps and petitions proceed – is broadly anticipated to be jailed in the coming days, amid mounting rumors that he will be moved to a well-known top-security prison.

Historical Remarks on Inmates

During Bolsonaro’s 40-year political career, the conservative ex- military man showed minimal mercy for the country's prison population.

“For what reason must we provide these lowlifes a comfortable existence?” he once pondered. “They should just get screwed, period. That's my view.”

In another instance, Bolsonaro proclaimed: “Should you not wish to finish in prison, the only thing required is not sexual assault, abduction or rob.”

Jail Facility Debate

Yet the idea of Bolsonaro himself winding up in the Papuda top-security prison in Brasília has appalled allies, several of whom this week inspected the complex in an apparent effort to prevent the high court from transferring him there.

Senator Lucas, a lawmaker from Bolsonaro’s allied group who was among that group, stated he predicted the elderly politician to be incarcerated in the coming fortnight and feared his assigned prison could be Papuda.

Lucas claimed Bolsonaro’s serious intestinal ailments – the consequence of a life-threatening stabbing during the 2018 election race – implied it would be dangerous to keep the ex-leader there. “His condition is extremely serious. He will not be able to manage if they send him to Papuda … It will be terrible,” said the senator, who also voiced anxiety about packed cells and the quality of inmate food.

During his tour Papuda, Lucas remembered observing cells accommodating forty detainees: “It's practically one meter squared per inmate.

“We talked to the inmates and they complain, naturally, of the horrible meals,” remarked the senator.

Allies Voice Concerns

Lucas is not the sole person voicing opinions prior to the one-time head of state's predicted incarceration.

Authoring in a leading publication, one more backer, the ex- communications minister Fábio Wajngarten, deplored the “harsh” conclusion to Bolsonaro’s “impeccable” political career and alleged Brazil was about to see “the largest wrong in its past”.

“It represents an injustice that erodes the spirits of many people in Brazil,” Wajngarten wrote.

Divided Public Reaction

It is possibly true due to the considerable backing Bolsonaro maintains on the right-wing. However his predicted jailing has also gladdened the feelings of millions others who believe he ought to be jailed for planning to stop his successor from taking power – and even scheming to have him killed.

The lawmaker, a politician for the current leader's Workers’ party, said: “Not a soul desires Bolsonaro to be placed in a dungeon. Not a soul desires Bolsonaro to be placed in isolation. Nobody wants Bolsonaro to go hungry or for him to have to lie on concrete. We desire him to obtain respectful treatment – but proper treatment in prison. He must not persist being his self-appointed guard for his whole life.”

The congressman noted how Bolsonaro allies, who have spent years praising the severe handling of convicts, had suddenly woken up to their privileges. “Recently has the far-right – which has repeatedly asserted that civil liberties are not for criminals – chosen to tour a penitentiary to find out what situations are actually like,” he stated.

“The former president is a offender,” he affirmed, but that did not mean he deserved “shameful, insulting treatment”.

Potential Prison Environment

Despite speculation that Bolsonaro could be sent to Papuda, which now houses about 14,000 detainees, his more likely assigned facility appears to be a adjacent penitentiary for police officers and other “particular” detainees called Papudinha (Little Papuda).

The accommodations are far more comfortable than those in the main prison, although nevertheless a far cry from the luxury Bolsonaro enjoyed while living in the spectacular leader's home, around 12 miles away.

According to information, the cell Bolsonaro could expect to reside in in Papudinha has about 260 square feet – roughly the size of a couple of car spots – and contains a 130 square foot bathroom with a bathing area and a 130 square foot terrace. “Bolsonaro would be allowed to have a TV and also a cooler in his room as long as they were supplied by his loved ones,” sources suggested.

Partisan Responses

The lawmaker condemned the talked-about proposal to send the one-time head of state to Papuda as “a form of payback” on the part of the presiding magistrate who oversaw Bolsonaro’s coup trial and will rule on his fate in the {