Jair Bolsonaro has been in an intensive care unit in Brasilia after a transfer from the prison where he is serving a 27-year sentence for leading a coup attempt in 2023, and a hospital statement said his kidneys have worsened while his lung infection is stable. The hospital said Saturday that Bolsonaro, 70, was moved to the DF Star Hospital intensive care unit hours earlier and that his kidney function deteriorated there, even as pneumonia stabilized and doctors described his situation as serious but stable.

The DF Star Hospital statement said Bolsonaro has pneumonia and that doctors also saw an increase in inflammatory markers since treatment began. It said his initial admission followed symptoms that included high fever, low oxygen, sweating and chills, and that exams confirmed bronchopneumonia, a type of pneumonia, likely caused by aspiration.

Bolsonaro was transferred to the hospital on Friday from the prison where he is serving his sentence, after which doctors moved him to the intensive care unit. The hospital said his medical condition was serious and stable, and it continued monitoring him after the deterioration in kidney function, as reported by the statement.

The hospitalization also intersects with an ongoing legal fight over the conditions of his confinement. The statement noted that Bolsonaro has been transferred from local federal police headquarters to a larger cell in January, and it said his relatives have repeatedly asked Brazil’s Supreme Court to allow him to serve his sentence under house arrest, arguing that he has received insufficient medical attention.

Bolsonaro has faced multiple hospitalizations since being stabbed at a campaign event before the 2018 presidential election. The hospital update arrived as his family continues seeking greater medical access through the courts, despite the fact that Bolsonaro is serving time for convictions related to the 2023 coup attempt.

Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro said in Brasilia that the hospitalization was part of a recurring pattern since his father’s stabbing. “Unfortunately we have to learn how to live with this. It is not the first, the second or the third time my father is hospitalized because of the problems coming from the stabbing,” he told journalists, adding that his father “is stable, he did not improve, but he is stable.”

The convictions for Bolsonaro include leading an armed criminal organization and attempting the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, according to the statement, and he has denied wrongdoing. Jair Bolsonaro governed Brazil from 2019 to 2022, and his son Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro has been expected to seek the presidency later this year against incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.