Brasil’s former President Bolsonaro explained that the damage to his electronic ankle monitor was due to hallucinations caused by medication, denying any intention to flee. During a hearing, he stated, ‘The witness (Bolsonaro) explained that he had a ‘hallucination’ that the ankle monitor was being bugged, leading him to try to open the cover,’ quoted the news portal ‘G1’ from the hearing’s transcript. The former President was preemptively arrested on Saturday morning after an alert from the monitoring device indicated possible tampering. In a video later released by the court, he admitted to working on the device with a soldering iron out of curiosity, as he claimed. Recordings showed a scorched plastic casing of the ankle monitor. Bolsonaro developed ‘a certain paranoia,’ according to the hearing. The 70-year-old said that due to the medication, he developed ‘a certain paranoia’ and started tampering shortly after midnight. He then ‘came to his senses’ and stopped. He denied having cut the monitor and also refuted any intention to flee, according to Bolsonaro. The preemptive detention was ordered by the Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. He cited reasons such as the damage to the monitoring device and a vigil outside Bolsonaro’s house organized by his son, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro. The judge argued that a possible chaos could have hindered the control of the house arrest and facilitated an escape. Bolsonaro reportedly said that the vigil was 700 meters away, so there was no opportunity to flee.Bolsonaro had recently been under house arrest for violating court orders. The preemptive detention is not part of the punishment for an attempted coup for which he was sentenced to over 27 years in prison in September. The sentence is not final yet, with enforcement expected next week.