Bolsonaro has been taken into custody after authorities found he posed a serious risk of fleeing while under home confinement.
The one-time leader was convicted of orchestrating a military coup in the ninth month and handed more than over two decades in prison, but he remained under confinement pending appeals.
Top Judicial Official the presiding justice said the decision to arrest the septuagenarian politician was a precautionary step after fresh information emerged.
This included attempting to break his tracking device and a summons to a public vigil that could "allow for a possible escape.
Judicial Records Show Escape Risks
In a paperwork permitting the arrest, the magistrate said intelligence from the facility tracking Bolsonaro's house arrest suggested the ex-president's plan to remove the surveillance device to guarantee victory in his getaway".
This, it said, would be assisted by the confusion caused by the protest called by his offspring.
His child, Flávio Bolsonaro, who serves as a senator, called for a gathering of his backers near Bolsonaro's home to take place on Saturday night.
Flávio Bolsonaro wrote on digital networks on last Friday: Do you plan to struggle for your nation, or watch it all from your smartphone there on your couch? I call on you to struggle with us."
He said the gathering would be so backers could seek divine intervention for his health and for the restoration of democratic rule in our land."
Diplomatic Refuge Fears
Part of the magistrate's ruling was the potential of the former president's "relocation to foreign missions near the home, considering that the inquiries revealed a history of planning to seek refuge through a embassy office", a declaration said.
The legal document highlights that the United States embassy in the national capital, Brazil's capital, is located around 13km from the former president's residence.
International Reactions
The former president's legal troubles have generated frustration from fellow populist conservative American leader Trump, leading him to enact a fifty percent tax on Brazilian product imports.
He is being held in a federal law enforcement building in Brazil's capital city and will experience a custody hearing on the next day.
Latest Court Petitions
It was only on the previous day that the ex-leader's attorneys asked the Top Court to permit him to complete his entire prison term under house arrest, with tracking devices.
They also petitioned that the former president be authorized to exit his dwelling for medical treatment, saying he needed regular treatment for pulmonary infections and other health problems.
Context of Sentencing
He was determined responsible of orchestrating a plot aimed at keeping him in power after he failed to win the presidential race to his ideological adversary, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Supreme Court justices said that he was aware of a plot which included plans to assassinate the current president and his vice-presidential running mate, Geraldo Alckmin, and to imprison and murder Justice Moraes - the top judicial official who has been managing Bolsonaro's trial.
The scheme was thwarted because it failed to get the support of the army and air force commanders. Lula was inaugurated without issue on the first day of 2023.
But a following week, on the eighth of January, numerous his backers attacked and damaged official structures in the capital, Brazil's capital.
The police intervened and around approximately 1,500 persons were detained.
The judges found that the rioters had been provoked by Bolsonaro whose strategy, they said, was for the Brazilian military to take action, bring back stability and return him to office.
At the moment, his attorneys called the over 27-year sentence "absurdly excessive.
He was also barred from running for public office until the year 2060 - eight years later after the end of his sentence.
The one-time head of state called the trial a "witch hunt and said it was aimed at blocking him running in the next presidential race.
