By Luciana Magalhaes and Ricardo Brito
BRASILIA (Reuters) -Brazil’s Supreme Court issued search warrants and restraining orders against former President Jair Bolsonaro on Friday, banning him from contacting foreign officials for allegedly courting the interference of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Federal police raided Bolsonaro’s home and he was ordered to wear an ankle monitor, adding to legal pressure that Trump has tried to relieve with a steep tariff on Brazilian goods.
The court’s crackdown on Bolsonaro added to signs that Trump’s tactics could backfire in Brazil, compounding trouble for his ideological ally and rallying public support behind a defiant leftist government.
Bolsonaro was also banned from contacting foreign officials, using social media and approaching embassies, according to the decision issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who cited a “concrete possibility” of him fleeing the country.
He added that Bolsonaro had asked the “head of state of a foreign nation” to interfere in the Brazilian courts, which he characterized as an attack on national sovereignty.
Bolsonaro is on trial before Brazil’s Supreme Court on charges of plotting a coup to stop his rival President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office in January 2023.
Bolsonaro, who governed Brazil from 2019 to 2022 and calls the case against him a political persecution, told reporters on Friday that he never considered fleeing Brazil. He said the latest court orders were meant for his “supreme humiliation.”
Trump has in recent weeks pressed Brazil to stop the legal case against Bolsonaro, saying that his former ally was the victim of a “witch hunt”. The U.S. president said last week he would impose a 50% tariff on Brazilian goods from August 1, in a letter opening with criticism of the Bolsonaro trial.
Trump on Thursday shared on Truth Social a letter he sent to Bolsonaro. “I have seen the terrible treatment you are receiving at the hands of an unjust system turned against you. This trial should end immediately!” he wrote.
Moraes wrote in his decision that the higher tariffs threatened by Trump were aimed at creating a serious economic crisis in Brazil to interfere in the country’s judiciary.
Bolsonaro was also prohibited from contacting key allies including his son Eduardo, a Brazilian congressman who has been lobbying in Washington to help his father.
The decision from Moraes said the former president and his son had acted illegally “to subject the functioning of the Supreme Court to the scrutiny of a foreign state, through hostile acts resulting from spurious and criminal negotiations to obstruct justice and coerce this court.”
A five-judge panel of Brazil’s Supreme Court is set to review Moraes’ orders on Friday and decide whether to uphold them.
(Reporting by Luciana Magalhaes, Ricardo Brito, Gabriel Araujo, Eduardo Simoes, Pedro Fonseca, Isabel Teles; Writing by Gabriel Araujo; Editing by Brad Haynes, Barbara Lewis, Philippa Fletcher, Franklin Paul, Alexandra Hudson)
