Brazil's Bolsonaro seeks court approval for prison visit by Trump adviser

BRASILIA, March 10 (Reuters) - Lawyers for former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro have asked the country's Supreme Court to allow Darren Beattie, who was recently tapped by the Trump administration for a senior advisory role overseeing Brazil, to visit him in prison next week, a document showed on Tuesday.

Bolsonaro began in November to serve a 27-year prison sentence for plotting a coup against his successor, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who defeated him in the 2022 presidential election.

The former right-wing leader, who served as president between 2019 and 2022, was a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump during the period when both were in office.

Trump has previously called Bolsonaro's trial a "witch hunt", and imposed tariffs on Brazilian goods last year citing what he called the persecution of the ex-president. Most of the import duties were reversed by the end of the year.

"Exceptional authorization is requested so that the visit can take place on March 16, in the afternoon, or on March 17, in the morning or early afternoon," Bolsonaro's lawyers said in the document.

Beattie, a critic of Brazil's current government, was appointed to the position shaping U.S. policy toward Brazil last month, a move that suggested relations between the two countries remain delicate despite a recent rapprochement.

In August, Beattie provoked a diplomatic incident after describing Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes in an X post as "the key architect of the censorship and persecution complex directed against Bolsonaro."

Moraes presided over the criminal case against Bolsonaro, who was convicted in September. He is currently imprisoned in a penitentiary in Brasilia.