Brazil's former president Bolsonaro temporarily leaves prison for hernia surgery

Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence for an attempted coup, was admitted to a hospital on Wednesday for a hernia surgery.

Bolsonaro is expected to undergo the procedure on Christmas Day.

Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes gave the far-right leader the go-ahead after federal police doctors confirmed the need for medical intervention.

“All this leaves us very worried of what can happen," the ex-president's son Carlos Bolsonaro told reporters. "It’s never a simple procedure, it would be if he had never been stabbed, but we know that his intestine is totally debilitated.”

Doctors say Bolsonaro’s hernia affects his groin and causes him pain.

The former Brazilian president, in power between 2019 and 2022, has gone through several other surgeries since he was stabbed in the abdomen during a campaign rally in 2018.

De Moraes, who oversaw Bolsonaro’s coup trial and sentenced him to prison in September, has denied the former president’s request for house arrest after he leaves the hospital.

The former president and several of his allies were convicted by a panel of Supreme Court justices for attempting to overthrow Brazil’s democracy following his 2022 election defeat.

The plot included plans to kill President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and de Moraes. There was also a plan to encourage an insurrection in early 2023.

The former president was also convicted on charges that included leading an armed criminal organisation and attempting the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law.

Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoing.