Brazil's Flávio Bolsonaro Barred From Leaving Country After Election Loss to Lula

Brazilian senator Flávio Bolsonaro has been banned from leaving the country and told to hand over his passports, only hours after losing the presidential election to the leftist incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The order came from supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes, who also presided over the trial of the senator's father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, for attempting a coup.

The brief ruling refers only to a criminal case in which federal police are investigating Flávio Bolsonaro over possible involvement in a money-laundering scheme. It bars him from any contact with his friend Willer Tomaz, a lawyer linked to betting companies that police suspect were used to launder about £680m. It also cancels all of the senator's passports, including the diplomatic one he holds as a congressman, and gives him 24 hours to surrender them.

Bolsonaro was the first to speak publicly about the decision, before Brazilian media had learned of it. In a video posted on social media, he said he had just left a visit to his father, who is under house arrest in Brasília, when "Lula's federal police were at his door and in the middle of the street, and I was served with an order to hand over my passports and I am also prohibited from leaving the country."

He linked the decision to an interview given last Friday by his brother, Eduardo Bolsonaro, who lives in self-imposed exile in the US. Eduardo told a US podcast he favoured the senator leaving Brazil if he lost the election. The senator said of that idea: "I never said that." The ruling itself does not mention the interview.

His Senate term ends early next year, and he will then be out of public office for the first time in 24 years. That means he will lose the special jurisdiction afforded to officeholders. He is also under investigation in a separate criminal case over what happened to the £20m he was recorded asking a disgraced banker, accused of corruption, to provide for a biopic about his father.

Like Jair Bolsonaro four years ago, the senator has not conceded defeat to Lula. The newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported that he had been persuaded to drop a plan to seek annulment of the election, which he announced after the result was declared on Sunday night.

He had argued that a two-hour extension of voting, meant to help voters unable to use the mandatory free public transport, damaged the election. His own campaign had also called for an extension. According to the newspaper, allies and lawyers told him the argument was legally weak.

Bolsonaro has not publicly withdrawn his call for annulment. In the same video, he said he would file another case seeking to disqualify Lula's ticket over alleged abuse of economic power, similar to others his legal team brought during the campaign.