Did Jair Bolsonaro cheat to circumvent health rules? Brazilian police conducted a search of the ex-president's home on Wednesday (May 3rd) as part of an investigation into the alleged falsification of Covid-19 vaccination certificates, according to several local media.
The Federal Police (FP) explained in a statement that it had conducted a total of 16 searches, in Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia, targeting "a criminal network" suspected of "inserting false data of vaccination against Covid on public health systems", but without mentioning Jair Bolsonaro by name.
The fake vaccination certificates were allegedly "used to circumvent health restrictions imposed by the authorities in Brazil and the United States," the statement said.
Asked by AFP, the PF did not immediately confirm whether the far-right ex-president (2019-2022) was targeted by the police operation.
According to media reports, Mauro Cid, former aide-de-camp to Jair Bolsonaro during his presidency, was arrested as part of the police operation.
A fiercely "anti-vax" president
An AFP photographer saw a federal police car leave the closed housing estate where Jair Bolsonaro resides in Brasilia, without being able to identify the occupants of the vehicle.
According to several Brazilian media, the mobile phones of the former head of state and his wife Michelle were seized.
During his tenure, Jair Bolsonaro has continued to criticize anti-Covid vaccines, repeatedly assuring that he does not intend to be immunized, while the pandemic has killed more than 700,000 people in Brazil.
Defeated in the October presidential election, he then spent three months in the United States, leaving Brazil two days before the inauguration of his leftist successor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The vaccination certificate was still required to enter the United States during this stay. The U.S. government announced Monday that the requirement would be lifted as of May 11.
Since his return to Brazil at the end of March, Jair Bolsonaro has been questioned twice by the federal police.
The first hearing took place on April 5, in the case of jewelry donated by Saudi Arabia that entered Brazil illegally, and the second last week as part of an investigation into his alleged role in the January 8 riots in Brasilia, when places of power were ransacked by individuals refusing to accept Lula's election.
With AFP
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