Brazil's Bolsonaro recovering after 12-hour surgery

April 13 (Reuters) - Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is recovering after undergoing surgery on Sunday, his sixth since being stabbed in the stomach while campaigning in 2018, his wife, Michelle, said in a social media post.

"Surgery concluded with success," she posted. "My heart overflows with gratefulness for each one of you who have been praying."

The procedure started at 8:30 a.m. local time (1130 GMT) and was scheduled to last six hours, but went on for about 12 hours because of the complexity of the surgery.

The medical team said in a report that the procedure went well and that the former president was stable, without pain, and was in the hospital's intensive care unit.

Doctors for the far-right leader are expected to talk to reporters on Monday morning, the hospital's press office said. Bolsonaro, 70, was hospitalized on Friday after feeling strong abdominal pain during an event with supporters in northeastern Brazil, forcing him to break off a regional tour aimed at drumming up political support. He was transferred to the nation's capital, Brasilia, where he lives, on Saturday night. Bolsonaro, a hard-right former army captain who served as president from 2019 to 2022, has been campaigning around Brazil for Congress to pass an amnesty bill for his supporters who stormed the capital after he lost the 2022 election.

In a message to allies before the surgery, he criticized the potential for a supporter to be sentenced to 10 years in prison, and again called for Congress to pass the amnesty bill.

"May God enlighten each of the 513 representatives and 81 senators in their votes," he wrote. "If with our decisions we pave our eternity, this vote carries a significant weight." Brazil's Supreme Court in March ruled that Bolsonaro should stand trial over accusations that he conspired to overthrow the government after his 2022 electoral defeat. He has denied any wrongdoing and called the trial an example of left-wing "lawfare" targeting conservative leaders such as himself and France's Marine Le Pen.

Bolsonaro has already been banned from running for office until 2030 for discrediting the country's voting system. If the Supreme Court finds him guilty, he could face a long prison sentence. Even so, he insists that he will run in next year's presidential election, casting himself as the best candidate to take on leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose popularity has slipped amid high inflation.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Viga, Ricardo Brito, Luciana Novaes Magalhaes and Augusta Lunardi; Writing by Manuela Andreoni; Editing by Mark Porter, Diane Craft and Edwina Gibbs)