Bolsonaro asks Moraes to ease his sentence by reading books

Former President Jair Bolsonaro asked Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), for authorization to reduce part of the sentence by reading books, as part of the ongoing criminal execution at the Court. Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years and 3 months in prison for an attempted coup d’état and is being held at the Federal Police Superintendency in Brasília.

In the request presented to the STF, the former president’s defense requests that he be included in the sentence remission program for reading, provided for in the Criminal Execution Law and regulated by resolution of the National Council of Justice (CNJ).

According to the program’s rules, each literary work read and evaluated can result in the remission of four days of the sentence, as long as the prisoner presents a written report, which is submitted for analysis by a responsible committee and, subsequently, for judicial approval.

Lawyers claim that the former president expresses interest in formally joining reading activities as a way of developing educational actions compatible with the resocializing purpose of the sentence. The petition highlights that prior judicial authorization is necessary to guarantee access to the books and the material conditions for preparing the required reviews.

The defense asks Moraes to authorize Bolsonaro’s participation in the program and order the responsible administration to allow access to the works and the registration of activities, which would allow the presentation of future requests for a reduction in the sentence.