Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro has been discharged after spending three weeks in hospital recovering from major abdominal surgery.
The right-wing politician, who led the South American country between 2019 and 2022 before losing his re-election bid, was being treated for an intestinal obstruction before his release on Sunday.
He has had several medical complications, including six surgeries, since a 2018 stabbing that left him with lasting injuries.
The 70-year-old Bolsonaro had earlier on Sunday said on social media that he was set to be discharged, and even suggested that he would try to attend a rally on Wednesday being planned by supporters.
“I’m going home renewed. My next challenge: joining the Peaceful March for Humanitarian Amnesty on Wednesday, May 7,” Bolsonaro wrote.
The rally is being held in support of an amnesty for supporters of the former president who stormed government buildings following Bolsonaro’s loss to current Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2022. Bolsonaro had refused to publically acknowledge his defeat at the time.
Bolsonaro had been touring the country attempting to drum up support for an amnesty for the January 2023 riots when he was hospitalised after experiencing severe abdominal pain during a political event in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte in April.
The ex-president, who is aligned with right-wing figures in the United States and elsewhere, has his own legal troubles, after Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled in March that he should stand trial for being part of an alleged plot to overturn his 2022 election loss.
Thirty-three others have been accused of being part of the coup plot, which reportedly included a plan to poison President Lula and kill a Supreme Court judge.
