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Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Friday barred a US diplomat from entering the country to visit the jailed former far‑right leader Jair Bolsonaro amid concerns about US interference ahead of elections this year.
Bolsonaro, who was sentenced for plotting a coup, was admitted to intensive care on Friday after developing bronchopneumonia in prison.
President Donald Trump has labelled the case against his Latin American ally a “witch hunt.”
Earlier in the week, Bolsonaro’s lawyers asked the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil to permit Darren Beattie, the US State Department’s new advisor on Brazil, to visit Bolsonaro in prison on March 18.
The court initially approved the visit but later withdrew the authorisation after the Brazilian government objected.
“I banned him from coming to Brazil,” Lula said at an event in Rio de Janeiro on Friday.
A Brazilian diplomatic source told reporters that Beattie’s visa was revoked on Friday over “lies about the purpose of the visit.”
Lula added that the US diplomat would not be allowed into Brazil until Washington reinstated the visa of Brazilian Health Minister Alexandre Padilha, which was revoked last year.
Padilha was sanctioned late last year over his involvement in a programme employing Cuban doctors in Brazil.
Bolsonaro, 70, is serving a 27‑year term for his failed attempt to remain in power after his 2022 election defeat by Lula.
His trial last year drew strong criticism from the Trump administration, which imposed high tariffs on Brazilian exports as punishment — measures that were later eased after a meeting between Lula and Trump in October.
Brazil’s foreign ministry said Beattie’s visa had been granted solely for attendance at a forum on critical minerals and meetings with government officials, adding that a foreign official’s trip to see a former president during an election year “could constitute undue interference” in internal affairs.
Bolsonaro remains a symbolic figure for the Brazilian right despite his imprisonment and ill health.
A statement from DF Star Hospital in Brasilia said he had “high fever, a drop in oxygen saturation, sweating and chills” and is being treated with intravenous antibiotics for “bilateral bacterial bronchopneumonia.”
The Supreme Federal Court of Brazil has so far denied requests for Bolsonaro to serve his sentence under house arrest.
“They are playing with my father’s life,” his son Flávio Bolsonaro, who is running for president in October against Lula, said on Friday.
