Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro was officially charged Tuesday with falsifying his COVID-19 vaccination status, marking the first indictment against the embattled far-right leader, with other allegations potentially on the way.
The Federal Police indictment released by the Supreme Court alleged that Bolsonaro and the 16-year-olds inserted false data into a public fitness database to give the impression that the then-president, his 12-year-old daughter and several members of his entourage had won covid. -19 vaccine.
Police Detective Fábio Alvarez Shor, who signed the indictment, said in his report that Bolsonaro and his collaborators had altered their vaccination to “issue their respective [vaccination] certificates and use them to circumvent existing eligibility restrictions. “
“The investigation revealed several false insertions between November 2021 and December 2022, as well as movements using fraudulent documents,” Shor added.
The detective said in the indictment that Bolsonaro’s aide-de-camp, Mauro Cid, told investigators that the former president asked him to insert the false knowledge into the formula for himself and his teenage daughter.
Cid also said he passed the vaccination certificate to Bolsonaro.
During the pandemic, Bolsonaro was one of the few world leaders to oppose the vaccine. He blatantly flouted fitness restrictions and encouraged other Brazilians to follow suit.
Its leadership ignored several offers from pharmaceutical company Pfizer to sell tens of millions of vaccines to Brazil in 2020, and criticized the São Paulo state governor’s decision to buy vaccines from China’s Sinovac when no more doses were available.
Brazil’s attorney general will have the final say on whether to use the indictment to register charges against Bolsonaro in the Supreme Court.
The case follows one of several investigations into Bolsonaro, who governed from 2019 to 2022.
Bolsonaro’s lawyer, Fábio Wajngarten, called his client’s accusation “absurd” and said he didn’t have to.
“When he’s president, he completely exempts you from presenting any kind of certificate when you travel. This is political persecution and an attempt to drain the enormous political capital that has only grown,” Wajngarten said.
The former president denied any wrongdoing during his interrogation in May 2023.
Gleisi Hoffmann, president of the Workers’ Party, whose candidate defeated Bolsonaro, celebrated his accusation on social media.
He said he expected the former president to be tried in many other cases, adding his alleged attempt to smuggle $3 million worth of diamond jewelry into the country and the sale of two luxury watches he earned as gifts from Saudi Arabia while in power.
“He has lied to this day about his notorious administration, but now he will have to face the fact in court. The federal police indictment sent to prosecutors is the first of many,” Hoffmann said.
“What’s going on now, Big Coward? Are you going to face this or are you going to flee to Miami?”
Brazil’s Supreme Court has already confiscated Bolsonaro’s passport.
Police accuse Bolsonaro and his aides of falsifying the Health Ministry’s database some time before his trip to the United States in December 2022, two months after he lost his re-election bid to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Bolsonaro needed a vaccination certificate to enter the United States, where he remained for the last days of his term and the first months of Lula’s term.
The former president has claimed that he has never received a COVID-19 vaccine.
If convicted of falsifying fitness data, the 68-year-old politician could spend up to 12 years in jail, or even just two years, according to legal analyst Zilan Costa.
The maximum prison sentence for criminal conspiracy is 4 years, he said.
“What Bolsonaro will argue in this case is whether he inserted the knowledge or allowed others to do it, or not. And it’s transparent and simple: you either have proof or you don’t. It’s a very serious crime with a harsh sentence for those found guilty,” Costa told The Associated Press.
Shor also said he is waiting for data from the U. S. Department of Justice to “clarify whether the Americans under investigation actually used a false vaccination certificate upon arrival and remained in the United States. “
If so, more charges may be brought against Bolsonaro, Shor wrote without specifying in which country.
The indictment sheds new light on a Senate committee investigation that ended in October 2021 with a complaint of criminal charges against Bolsonaro, alleging he mishandled the pandemic.
Attorney General Augusto Aras, considered Bolsonaro’s best friend, later refused to move the case forward.
Brazilian media reported that Aras’ successor, Paulo Gonet, was scheduled to meet with lawmakers later on Tuesday to discuss the option of filing a complaint.
Bolsonaro maintains unwavering loyalty within his political base, as evidenced by last month’s avalanche, when an estimated 185,000 more people flooded São Paulo’s main side street to denounce what they (and the former president) call political persecution.
The indictment will deter his supporters and only verify the suspicions of his critics, said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in São Paulo.
“It’s worse for him in court,” Melo said. It’s possible that it simply contributes to a trend of convictions and then arrests. “
Brazil’s top electoral court has already declared Bolsonaro ineligible before 2030, claiming he abused his strength in the 2022 crusade and cast unfounded doubt on the country’s e-voting system.
Another investigation focuses on his alleged involvement in the Jan. 8, 2023, uprising in the capital Brasilia, shortly after Lula came to power.
The uprising resembled the U. S. Capitol in Washington two years earlier.
He denied any wrongdoing in the case.
Shor wrote that the indictment would be incorporated into the Jan. 8 investigation, overseen by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.
The court opening the indictment.
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