Bolsonaro's legal team asks for his release from house arrest

BRASILIA - Lawyers for former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said late on Tuesday they formally requested his release from house arrest, saying he has not been charged under an investigation that led to his imprisonment last month.

Bolsonaro has been under house arrest since August for failing to comply with restraining orders related to his alleged courting of U.S. President Donald Trump to interfere in the case in which he was accused of plotting a coup to remain in power after losing the 2022 election. Bolsonaro was later convicted in the case and sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison.

Trump has called the case a "witch hunt" and retaliated by imposing steep tariffs on Brazil's exports, sanctioning the judge overseeing the case against Bolsonaro, and taking away the visas of several Brazilian officials.

Bolsonaro was under investigation for inviting Trump's interference, as was his son, Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, who moved to the U.S. earlier this year to seek support from the U.S. president to stop criminal proceedings against his father.

On Monday, Brazilian prosecutor general charged the younger Bolsonaro, arguing he has "repeatedly sought to subordinate the interests of Brazil and the entire society to his own personal and family agenda."

The former president, for his part, was left out of the charges, which prompted his legal team's request on Tuesday.

"Without a criminal case filed, the precautionary measures become an end in themselves, and can no longer be legally upheld," one of Bolsonaro's lawyers, Paulo Cunha Bueno, wrote on X on Tuesday night. REUTERS