The federal police in Brazil have charged Jair Bolsonaro with criminal association and fabricating his own Covid-19 vaccination records. This is the first time the controversial far-right leader has been indicted, with the possibility of more charges to come.
On Tuesday, the supreme court made public the accusation from the police stating that Bolsonaro and 16 other individuals deliberately added incorrect details to the public health database in order to falsely show that the former president, his daughter who is 12 years old, and other members of his inner circle had been vaccinated against Covid-19.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Bolsonaro stood out among world leaders for his resistance to vaccinations and disregard for health protocols, urging others to do the same. His government failed to respond to numerous emails from Pfizer offering to sell millions of vaccine doses to Brazil in 2020. In addition, he openly opposed the decision made by São Paulo’s former governor, João Doria, to purchase vaccines from Chinese company Sinovac when no other options were available.
The authority of the Brazilian prosecutor-general’s office will ultimately determine if the police indictment will be utilized to press charges against Bolsonaro in the supreme court. This investigation is one of the many aimed at Bolsonaro, who was in power from 2019 to 2022.
The ex-president reaffirmed that he did not receive the Covid-19 vaccine and claimed to be at ease. “It’s a biased investigation. I am at peace, I have nothing to owe,” Bolsonaro stated to Reuters. “The international community is aware that I have not been vaccinated.”
Bolsonaro and his aides have been charged by the police with altering the health ministry’s database just before his trip to the US in December 2022. This occurred two months after he was defeated by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in his re-election campaign.
Bolsonaro needed a certificate of vaccination to enter the US, where he remained for the final days of his term and the first months of Lula’s term.
If the politician, aged 68, is found guilty of tampering with health information, they could face a sentence of up to 12 years in prison, according to legal expert Zilan Costa. However, the minimum jail time for criminal conspiracy is only two years, as stated by Costa.
Bolsonaro retains staunch allegiance among his base, as shown by an outpouring of support last month, with an estimated 185,000 people clogging São Paulo’s main boulevard to decry what they – and the former president – characterize as political persecution.
The electoral court in Brazil has determined that Bolsonaro is unable to run for office until 2030 due to his misconduct during the 2022 election and his false claims about the electronic voting system in the country.
Additional inquiries involve an attempt to uncover if Bolsonaro attempted to illegally bring in two costly diamond pieces into Brazil and keep them from being added to the official presidential collection. Another investigation revolves around his supposed participation in the uprising on January 8, 2023 in Brasília, shortly after Lula assumed the presidency. The situation was reminiscent of the riot at the Capitol in Washington two years prior. Bolsonaro has refuted any wrongdoing in these instances.
Source: theguardian.com
