Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro leaves Federal Police headquarters after giving testimony over the Jan. 8 assaults, in Brasilia, April 26.
Eraldo Peres/AP
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Eraldo Peres/AP
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro leaves Federal Police headquarters after giving testimony over the Jan. 8 assaults, in Brasilia, April 26.
Eraldo Peres/AP
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Federal police in Brazil raided the house of the previous far-right President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday, as a part of an investigation into potential falsification of COVID-19 vaccine playing cards.
The previous president’s cell phone was seized.
The raid befell early Wednesday morning on the former president’s house in Brazil’s capital, Brasilia. The Federal Police say they served 16 search and seizure warrants, in addition to six preventive arrest warrants within the capital and in Rio de Janeiro. The names of the focused people weren’t disclosed.
Investigators say officers in Bolsonaro’s inside circle created false vaccination certificates in order that unvaccinated vacationers, together with the previous president, his members of the family and assistants’ family, might enter the U.S. and circumvent necessary immunization necessities.
Bolsonaro, a vehement skeptic of COVID vaccines, confirmed to reporters that his house had been raided and mentioned that he was not vaccinated towards COVID-19. He denied any function in allegedly forging paperwork.
“I did not take the vaccine, my private determination,” he instructed reporters.
Native media report that a few of Bolsonaro’s closest aides, together with his private safety guard and secretary, had been arrested. The Federal Police mentioned they had been investigating a lot of potential public well being offenses.
An official instructed journalists that Bolsonaro can be deposed at federal police headquarters afterward Wednesday.
Responding to the raid, Valdemar Costa Neto, the chief of Bolsonaro’s political occasion, wrote on Twitter that his occasion “belief[s] that every one doubts the judiciary has can be clarified and it will likely be confirmed that Bolsonaro did not do something unlawful.”
