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, ABC News reported.
His wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, confirmed his hospitalization on Instagram, saying in a statement that her husband’s abdominal discomfort is related to a stabbing he suffered during a campaign event in 2018. His discomfort started Sunday night, CNN reported, citing an unidentified ally of the former president.
Hospital representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday. A front desk worker told HuffPost the hospital has no patients under Bolsonaro’s name.
Bolsonaro has been hospitalized on multiple occasions since the 2018 stabbing and has undergone six surgeries in that time, most of them related to the attack.
Democratic lawmakers have called on U.S. President Joe Biden to extradite Bolsonaro back to Brazil after Sunday’s violence in Brasilia, which was reminiscent of the 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Key government buildings in Brazil’s capital, including the country’s Congress and its Supreme Court, were ransacked by thousands of Bolsonaro supporters who demanded that he be reinstated or that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who won election in October, be removed from office.
Bolsonaro, who has not acknowledged his defeat, has been laying low in an Orlando rental house since late December, The New York Times reported.
Human Rights Watch was among those blaming the violence squarely on Bolsonaro and his allies. The nonprofit has highlighted his past unproven claims of voter fraud, and his suggestion ahead of last year’s vote that elections be canceled.
“This attack is the culmination of a years-long campaign by former president Jair Bolsonaro and his allies to undermine democratic principles and spread baseless claims of electoral fraud,” Tamara Taraciuk Broner, acting director of Human Rights Watch’s Americas Division, said in a statement.