Doctors for Brazil’s Bolsonaro say early-stage cancer detected in his skin lesions

Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro, accompanied by his wife Michelle Bolsonaro, departs a hospital where he received medical treatment as he returns home where he is under house arrest in Brasilia, Brazil, Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Luis Nova)

RIO DE JANEIRO — Doctors for former President Jair Bolsonaro said Wednesday that they detected early-stage cancer in skin lesions removed from the 70-year-old politician following his conviction last week on attempted coup charges.

Bolsonaro, under house arrest in Brasilia until his sentence is finalized, has been to hospital twice since Thursday’s court verdict. He went to the DF Star hospital Sunday to have eight lesions removed for testing, and again on Tuesday because of vomiting and low blood pressure before being released Wednesday.

Results showed early-stage skin cancer in two of the lesions, doctors said in a statement Wednesday, adding that Bolsonaro will need clinical monitoring and regular reevaluation.

“My father has already fought tougher battles and won. This one won’t be any different,” Bolsonaro’s eldest son Flávio said on a post on X. “You can be sure that this is the result of the relentless persecution ever since Jair Bolsonaro dared to challenge the system head-on and fight for Brazil.”

A panel of Supreme Court justices on Thursday found the ex-leader guilty of attempting a coup to illegally hang onto power despite his 2022 electoral defeat to current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. They sentenced him to 27 years and three months in prison.

The sentence doesn’t immediately send Bolsonaro to prison. The court panel has up to 60 days to publish the ruling after the decision. Once it does, Bolsonaro’s lawyers have five days to file motions for clarification.

Bolsonaro has denied wrongdoing and said he is the victim of political persecution. U.S. President Donald Trump has agreed and called the trial a “witch hunt,” and in July he imposed tariffs of 50% on Brazilian goods, citing the case against Bolsonaro, among other issues.

The former president since early August has been under house arrest imposed by the justice overseeing the case, Alexandre de Moraes, who said Bolsonaro had violated precautionary measures imposed on him in context of the trial.

Bolsonaro already had been wearing an ankle monitor, a measure enforced after Federal Police said that he and his lawmaker son Eduardo had been working with U.S. authorities to obtain sanctions against Brazilian public officials due to alleged persecution.

In late August, de Moraes increased security measures further and ordered that police conduct inspections of all vehicles leaving Bolsonaro’s residence and monitor the exterior of the house.

Bolsonaro has been hospitalized multiple times since being stabbed at a campaign event before the 2018 presidential election. In April, he underwent surgery for a bowel obstruction.

Lawyers for Bolsonaro are expected to put his ill health forward as an argument in a plea for house arrest, rather than obliging him to serve the sentence in a detention center.

Eléonore Hughes, The Associated Press