‘I Was Hallucinating’: Bolsonaro Defends Interfering With Ankle Tag

Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has blamed a “psychotic attack” for his decision to tamper with the ankle monitor tracking his movements. He told a judge he believed the device was spying on him.
Bolsonaro’s statement came after his dramatic arrest at dawn on Saturday. Security officials became suspicious after discovering that his monitor had been damaged, raising fears he would attempt to escape to a foreign embassy.
The ex-president has been under house arrest since August, when he was convicted for engineering a coup attempt. With appeals exhausted, he was expected to begin serving his 27-year sentence imminently.
In Sunday’s hearing, Bolsonaro attributed the incident to a reaction from a painkiller and an antidepressant he had recently begun taking. He claimed the medications triggered paranoia that led him to take a soldering iron to the tracking device.
Critics questioned his story, pointing to earlier comments in which he said he tampered with the equipment “out of curiosity.” Meanwhile, political tension continues to rise as Brazil waits to see whether Washington will escalate its response.