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He contested the legal system and the legal system prevailed.

Sixty days after being handed a quarter-century plus sentence for trying to “eradicate” Brazil’s democratic institutions, former president Jair Bolsonaro now seems headed to prison.

Imminent Incarceration

The found-guilty instigator – who's been living under residential detention in his mansion while a set of judicial steps and challenges proceed – is widely expected to be incarcerated in the next few days, amidst growing speculation that he will be sent to a notorious top-security facility.

Historical Statements on Inmates

Over Bolsonaro’s four-decade public life, the right-wing ex- paratrooper exhibited minimal compassion for the country's prison population.

“Why should we give these dirtbags a comfortable existence?” he once pondered. “They ought to simply be messed, full-fucking-stop. That’s what I reckon.”

At another time, Bolsonaro proclaimed: “Unless you desire to end up behind bars, you simply need is not sexual assault, kidnap or theft.”

Incarceration Location Debate

However the possibility of Bolsonaro himself winding up in the Papuda maximum security prison in Brasília has appalled backers, four of whom this week toured the facility in an apparent effort to prevent the high court from sending him there.

Senator Lucas, a politician from Bolsonaro’s Liberal party who was part of that quartet, claimed he expected the elderly figure to be jailed in the coming fortnight and worried his assigned prison could be Papuda.

Lucas claimed Bolsonaro’s severe digestive problems – the result of a life-threatening stabbing during the 2018 political campaign – signified it would be hazardous to keep the one-time head of state there. “His [health] situation is highly critical. He will not be able to handle it if they send him to Papuda … It will be awful,” he added, who also voiced anxiety about cramped cells and the quality of inmate food.

During his tour Papuda, Lucas remembered observing cells holding four dozen detainees: “That is almost one meter squared per inmate.

“We conversed to the convicts and they grumble, naturally, of the horrible meals,” remarked the senator.

Supporters React

Lucas is not the lone figure voicing opinions ahead of the one-time head of state's predicted incarceration.

Writing in a prominent newspaper, another ally, the ex- government official Fábio Wajngarten, bemoaned the “severe” finale to Bolsonaro’s “flawless” political career and alleged Brazil was about to experience “the largest political injustice in its history”.

“This is an injustice that gnaws the hearts of countless people in Brazil,” the former minister said.

Mixed Popular Reaction

That may be correct considering the significant support Bolsonaro holds on the conservative side. However his expected incarceration has also gladdened the feelings of millions others who think he should be incarcerated for conspiring to prevent the incoming president from taking power – and even conspiring to have him murdered.

The lawmaker, a congressman for the current leader's Workers’ party, stated: “Not a soul wishes Bolsonaro to be put in a dungeon. Nobody wishes Bolsonaro to be placed in segregation. No one desires Bolsonaro not to be fed or for him to have to sleep on the floor. We desire him to obtain respectful treatment – but dignified treatment in prison. He cannot continue being his personal jailer for his whole life.”

The congressman noted how Bolsonaro allies, who have for a long time celebrating the severe handling of convicts, had unexpectedly become aware to their rights. “Recently has the conservative fringe – which has repeatedly claimed that human rights should not be for lawbreakers – opted to inspect a prison to learn what situations are really like,” he said.

“Bolsonaro is a lawbreaker,” Otoni insisted, but that did not mean he earned “humiliating, insulting conduct”.

Potential Prison Environment

Despite speculation that Bolsonaro could be transferred to Papuda, which currently holds about 14,000 detainees, his more likely destination appears to be a adjacent penitentiary for police officers and other “unique” prisoners referred to as Papudinha (Small Papuda).

The accommodations are much more adequate than those in the larger jail, although nevertheless a distant from the comfort Bolsonaro experienced while occupying the impressive presidential palace, approximately 20 kilometers away.

Based on information, the room Bolsonaro could likely inhabit in Papudinha measures about 24 sq metres – about the size of vehicle spaces – and contains a 12 square meter bathroom with a bathing area and a 12 square meter balcony. “Bolsonaro would be authorized to have a television and even a cooler in his quarters as long as they were donated by his family,” the report suggested.

Partisan Comments

He condemned the rumoured proposal to send the one-time head of state to Papuda as “a form of payback” on the part of the supreme court judge who oversaw Bolsonaro’s legal case and will determine his fate in the {