Brazilian Police raids ex-Prez Bolsonaro’s dwelling, arrests aides in vaccine probe

By Reuters:

Brazilian police on Wednesday raided former President Jair Bolsonaro’s dwelling, arrested his trusted aides, and seized his cell phone as part of a probe into his COVID-19 vaccination data.

The investigation might reply questions on how Bolsonaro, a strident coronavirus skeptic who vowed under no circumstances to get a COVID vaccine, was registered as vaccinated in nicely being data made public in February.

Supreme Court paperwork confirmed federal police had found proof of tampering with Bolsonaro’s vaccine data in his remaining weeks as president in late December, sooner than he flew to the United States, the place most worldwide visitors need to be vaccinated.

Bolsonaro confirmed the raid on his dwelling in Brasilia to journalists and reiterated that he had under no circumstances taken a COVID vaccine. He denied any place in allegedly forging paperwork.

“For my part, there was nothing falsified. I didn’t take the vaccine. Period,” he acknowledged, together with that his cellphone was seized.

The vaccine probe is actually one in every of many inserting the earlier far-right chief beneath stress, along with investigations into alleged voter suppression, his assaults on the legitimacy of Brazilian elections, and embezzlement of worldwide objects.

Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoing in these cases.

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Federal police in an announcement acknowledged they’d been serving 16 search warrants and 6 preventive arrest warrants in Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro as part of the operation, with out naming these targeted.

The Supreme Court, which is overseeing the case, launched court docket docket paperwork on Wednesday that included an arrest warrant for Mauro Cid, actually one in every of Bolsonaro’s non-public assistants when he was president, who stayed on as an aide after he stepped down.

Police cited proof that Cid designed a scheme by means of which Bolsonaro was registered on Dec. 21 as vaccinated in the direction of COVID, court docket docket paperwork confirmed. The entry, made in a public nicely being office in suburban Rio de Janeiro, was eradicated each week later, based mostly on the paperwork.

Bolsonaro’s non-public security officers Max Guilherme and Sergio Cordeiro, who’ve stayed on as part of his component, had been moreover arrested in Wednesday’s operation over accusations they falsified their vaccine data sooner than flying with Bolsonaro to the United States.

Cid and the alternative aides could not immediately be reached for comment.

Police acknowledged they’d been investigating a scheme to insert “false data” in a nationwide COVID-19 database between November 2021 and December 2022.

“As a result, they were able to issue vaccine certificates and use them to circumvent restrictions imposed by public authorities in Brazil and the United States,” police acknowledged.

The investigation elements to “ideological” causes for circumventing vaccination pointers, police acknowledged, “in order to keep up a discourse of attacking vaccination against COVID-19.”

“We trust that all legal doubts will be cleared up and it will be proven that Bolsonaro did not commit illegal acts,” Valdemar Costa Neto, the highest of Bolsonaro’s political get collectively, wrote on social media.

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