Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been hospitalized in Florida for abdominal pain, it was reported Monday, a day after his supporters stormed Brazil’s top government offices in the wake of his election loss.
The 67-year-old far-right leader was admitted to AdventHealth Orlando, TBEN News reported.
His wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, confirmed his hospitalization on Instagram and said in a statement that her husband’s abdominal pain is related to a stabbing he suffered at a 2018 campaign event. His discomfort began Sunday night, CNN reported, citing a unknown ally of the former president.
Hospital representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday. A front desk clerk told The Bharat Express News that the hospital has no patients under Bolsonaro’s name.
Bolsonaro has been hospitalized multiple times since the stabbing in 2018 and has had six surgeries in that time, most of them related to the attack.
Democratic lawmakers have called on US President Joe Biden to extradite Bolsonaro to Brazil following Sunday’s violence in Brasilia reminiscent of the 2021 Capitol uprising.
Key government buildings in Brazil’s capital, including the country’s Congress and Supreme Court, were looted by thousands of Bolsonaro supporters who demanded that he be reinstated or that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who won the election in October, be removed from his office. office would be relieved.
Bolsonaro, who has not conceded defeat, has been sitting low in an Orlando rental house since late December, The New York Times reported.
Human Rights Watch was among those blaming Bolsonaro and his allies for the violence. The nonprofit has pointed to its previous unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud and its suggestion ahead of last year’s vote to cancel the election.
“This attack is the culmination of a years-long campaign by former President Jair Bolsonaro and his allies to undermine democratic principles and spread unfounded claims of voter fraud,” said Tamara Taraciuk Broner, acting director of Human Rights Watch’s Americas division. .
