Jair Bolsonaro has been detained after authorities found he posed a definite escape threat while under house arrest.
The ex-president was found guilty of plotting a military coup in last fall and given more than over two decades in prison, but he was staying under confinement pending court reviews.
Top Judicial Official Justice Moraes said the action to imprison the septuagenarian politician was a safety action after recent developments were revealed.
This included trying to remove his electronic bracelet and a invitation to a demonstration that could enable a potential flight.
In a paperwork permitting the arrest, the magistrate said intelligence from the centre monitoring Bolsonaro's house arrest suggested the one-time head of state's "intention to break the surveillance device to ensure success in his escape.
This, it said, would be made easier by the chaos caused by the demonstration called by his son.
His offspring, Flávio, who serves as a legislator, called for a meeting of his backers near his father's house to take place on Saturday evening.
His son wrote on social media on Friday: Will you battle for your homeland, or observe everything from your phone there on your sofa? I invite you to battle with us."
He said the demonstration would be so supporters could "pray for his well-being and for the reestablishment of democratic governance in our land."
Part of the magistrate's decision was the potential of Bolsonaro's "relocation to diplomatic missions near the dwelling, considering that the inquiries revealed a background of arranging to request asylum through a diplomatic representation", a statement said.
The court filing emphasizes that the US embassy in the capital, the capital city, is positioned around approximately 13 kilometers from the former president's residence.
The former president's legal troubles have provoked anger from fellow populist conservative United States President Trump, causing him to enact a half-rate duty on imports of Brazilian goods.
The former president is being detained in a Federal Police station in Brazil's capital city and will undergo a custody hearing on the next day.
It was only on the previous day that the former president's lawyers asked the Top Court to permit him to serve his whole jail sentence under house arrest, with digital surveillance.
They also asked that the former president be allowed to leave his home for medical care, saying he needed regular treatment for respiratory ailments and other illnesses.
The former president was convicted of orchestrating a scheme aimed at maintaining his control after he lost the national vote to his ideological adversary, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Supreme Court justices said that he had knowledge of a plot which encompassed plans to murder the current president and his running partner, Geraldo Alckmin, and to arrest and execute the presiding judge - the Supreme Court justice who has been managing the former president's case.
The plot was thwarted because it couldn't obtain the support of the armed forces officials. Lula was inaugurated without incident on the first day of 2023.
But a week later, on 8 January, numerous Bolsonaro supporters attacked and damaged official structures in the federal district, Brazil's capital.
The police stepped in and around 1,500 people were detained.
The magistrates found that the demonstrators had been encouraged by Bolsonaro whose strategy, they said, was for the national armed forces to intervene, reestablish control and bring him back to power.
At the moment, the legal team called the over 27-year sentence "absurdly excessive.
He was also barred from campaigning for office until twenty-sixty - a decade minus two years after the conclusion of his imprisonment.
The one-time head of state called the trial a targeted investigation" and said it was designed to prevent him competing in the 2026 presidential election.
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