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Jair Boslonaro at a party event in Brasilia: currently without a passport
Photo: Andre Borges / EPA
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is under three investigations, has asked the country's highest court for a temporary return of his passport. The request refers to "a fixed period" from May 12th to 18th so that Bolsonaro can accept an invitation to visit Israel with his family, his lawyer Fabio Wajngarten explained on Thursday in the online service X.
Bolsonaro is a close ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Bolsonaro's lawyers submitted the request by letter to Brazil's Supreme Federal Court - apparently on Monday, the day on which the New York Times published recordings from security cameras at the Hungarian embassy in Brasilia. They show that the former president spent two nights there.
Bolsonaro himself claims that he only stayed in the embassy for so long to have political discussions, but the suspicion is that he wanted to avoid possible arrest. He is being investigated, among other things, because he is said to have planned and prepared a coup in mid-2022 to prevent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from taking office.
On January 8, 2023, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed the government district in Brasília. Bolsonaro did not explicitly recognize the election victory of his successor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; Before and after the election he repeatedly spoke of electoral fraud.
The courts have banned Bolsonaro from running for public office. On February 8th, he was ordered by the judiciary to hand over his passport to prevent him from fleeing abroad.
vet/AFP