BBrazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is under investigation for a possible coup attempt, has asked the country’s highest court for a temporary return of his passport. The request refers to “a fixed period of time” so that Bolsonaro can accept an invitation to visit Israel with his family from May 12th to 18th, lawyer Fabio Wajngarten explained on X on Thursday.
Bolsonaro’s lawyers submitted the request by letter to Judge Alexandre de Moraes at Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court. The court is investigating the former president on suspicion of inciting unrest after his election defeat in October 2022. On January 8, 2023, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed the government district in Brasília. The right-wing politician did not explicitly acknowledge the election victory of his successor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; Before and after the election he repeatedly spoke of electoral fraud.
Danger of escape feared
The courts have barred Bolsonaro from running for public office, and constant scrutiny from prosecutors led his critics to label him a flight risk. According to a report in the New York Times, the right-wing politician sought refuge in the Hungarian embassy in Brasilia for two days after his passport was confiscated.
Bolsonaro is a close ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who invited him to Israel in late February. Israel has declared Bolsonaro’s successor persona non grata after he compared the Israeli attacks in Gaza to the Holocaust.
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