Brazilian ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, recovering from intestinal surgery, was in a stable condition Friday after a health setback that followed a court official serving him a summons in his hospital bed, hospital staff said.
The 70-year-old underwent intestinal surgery earlier this month, necessitated by ongoing health problems from a 2018 stabbing attack.
He remains in intensive care a month after he was ordered to stand trial on charges he directed an alleged coup plot to hold on to power.
The DF Star hospital treating Bolsonaro said Thursday he had “shown a clinical worsening, an increase in blood pressure and worsening of liver laboratory tests.”
This came a day after a court official visited Bolsonaro in hospital and delivered a summons giving him five days to submit his initial defense against coup charges, in preparation for trial.
A video of the exchange showed Bolsonaro reacting furiously, exclaiming: “I have five days to present my defense? Five days?” while pointing out he was still in intensive care. Nurses urged him to relax as his blood pressure rose.
On Friday, the hospital said the patient had not shown any new blood pressure spikes and tests results suggested “a normal post-operative evolution.”
Bolsonaro’s trial will be the first of an ex-leader accused of attempting to take power by force since Brazil’s return to democracy in 1985 following two decades of military dictatorship.
He risks a 40-year prison sentence and political banishment ahead of presidential elections next year he has been hoping to run in.
Bolsonaro has had recurring health problems since September 2018, when an attacker stabbed the then-candidate at a presidential campaign rally in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais.
He went on to win that election, serving a single term until 2022 when he lost a runoff to leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva — who he now stands accused of seeking to unseat in a coup.
