Former President Bolsonaro at his party headquarters last Thursday as soon as he returned to Brasilia from the United States.LIBERAL PARTY (via Portal)
Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro has an appointment at a police station in Brasilia this Wednesday afternoon for the first interrogation of the dozens of investigations he is facing. Federal police summoned him to ask about millions of euros worth of jewels he had received from the Saudi royal family and tried to keep, and other gifts he received during his tenure as President of Brazil (2019-2022 ) had received. The far-right, who enjoys no parliamentary or presidential immunity for the first time in 33 years, returned less than a week ago from the US, where he had been deployed since the end of his term. Bolsonaro must appear before police just a day after his beloved Donald Trump went down in history as the first former President of the United States to be charged with 34 crimes in his case.
Bolsonaro has returned home with the intention of leading the conservative right and opposition to the government of leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. But for now, that role is limited to sending a few tweets boasting about actions promoted during his tenure. He has not previously performed in public events. With so many cases facing him and the organizations investigating him, there is every indication that defending himself against the myriad of allegations against him will keep him busy.
The former president has never hidden his fear of ending up in prison, as was the case with former Bolivian President Jeanine Áñez, whose case he often recalled during the election campaign. And also Lula, jailed for more than a year on a corruption case that was later annulled and that separated him from the election campaign that Bolsonaro won in 2018. He recently publicly admitted that some of the ongoing investigation could spiral into an eight-year disqualification sentence preventing him from running for the next presidential election in 2026. Anderson Torres, a police commissioner who was justice minister in the Bolsonaro government, has been jailed since January for his alleged complicity in attacks on Brasilia powers because he was the political mastermind of the security forces that failed to prevent the invasion,
The jewels thing is his latest headache, which comes on top of investigations into promoting the coup plot by thousands of Bolsonaristas on Brasilia, alleged genocide against indigenous peoples in a pandemic and leaking false information about the electoral system during the election campaign in Brasilia’s accredited diplomatic corps .
What happened to the Saudi jewelry and other gifts is a convoluted plot that reads like a soap opera. The protagonists, together with the ex-president, are three sets of jewelry, including a Chopard diamond necklace with its corresponding certificate of authenticity, a white gold Rolex watch, cufflinks, a rosary … with which the Saudi royal family wanted to present themselves Bolsonaro and Mrs.
When the news broke, matters were spiced up with other juicy details. The energy minister’s entourage imported the jewels without declaring them or paying taxes, and they were spotted red-handed by efficient customs agents at São Paulo airport. Along with this confiscated gift were two other pieces of jewelry owned by the Bolsonaros. The former president, who initially denied everything, later admitted he had them and has returned them to authorities to speed up the deadlines.
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Revelations made by the Brazilian press have revealed that he kept close to a hundred gifts, including some as eye-catching as a semi-automatic rifle or a massage chair. Thanks to journalistic research, we also know that the former president tried ministries, other public bodies and his closest associates several times and unsuccessfully for more than a year to get customs to deliver him the most valuable batch of Saudi women’s jewelry, estimated at three million euros. In his latest attempt, he sent an assistant to Sao Paulo airport on a military plane from Brasilia to ask the official to take the package from him, as these issues needed to be resolved before the arrival of the next president. There were still days left for relief.
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