The Brazilian police ask that Jair Bolsonaro be charged for falsifying his vaccination card

The various investigations against Jair Bolsonaro, who presided over Brazil between 2019 and 2022, are gaining traction as shown by the fact that on Friday new testimonies will be revealed that place him at the center of a coup plot and that this Tuesday the Federal Police formally requested that he be charged for falsifying his vaccination record and that of his daughter, Laura, 13, according to the local press. Investigators accuse the former president, and fifteen other people, of entering the national registry of vaccinated people to fraudulently note that they had been immunized against covid-19 during the pandemic. Faced with this accusation for two crimes that carry sentences of 15 years, Bolsonaro has responded that it is no secret that he has never been vaccinated. But he has not explained how he was included in the national registry as immunized.

The Comptroller General’s office previously confirmed that the database indicated that Bolsonaro had been vaccinated in São Paulo in July 2021, on a date when he was not in the city, Reuters reports. His wife, Michelle, took advantage of a trip to the United States to get immunized there. And the then president boasted that their daughter would not receive the injection.

Since 15 months ago – when the far-right lost the power and immunity that he enjoyed for three decades, first as a deputy and then as president – investigations, testimonies, accusations and indications against him have multiplied. The ultra leader who leads the Brazilian opposition is also being investigated for proposing to the leadership of the Armed Forces various movements to promote a military intervention against Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – two generals stood up and neutralized the attempt – and for appropriating some jewels that The Saudi royal family gave him as a gift as head of state.

This case related to vaccines is so far the most advanced. But it will be the State Attorney General’s Office that will decide if there is sufficient evidence for him to be charged with the crimes of criminal association and insertion of false data into the public health computer system.

This “is a selective investigation,” Bolsonaro told Reuters. “I am calm,” he added to emphasize: “The world knows that I did not get vaccinated.”

Other cases against him have already been resolved. He was acquitted of the accusation of delaying the purchase of vaccines, but convicted of abuse of power, which meant that he was disqualified from running for election until 2030. The far-right, who presents himself as a victim of persecution, maintains muscle political. At the end of February, he gathered 185,000 of his followers in the center of São Paulo to proclaim his innocence.

During the coronavirus pandemic, Jair Bolsonaro, 68, stood out worldwide for his anti-vaccine denialism, a position that was espoused by virtually no other leader of a democratic country. He minimized the impact of infections — “The Brazilian is not infected, he dives into a sewer and nothing happens to him,” he stated; He denied the effectiveness of vaccines and misinformed them — “If you become an alligator, the problem is yours” —; He was in no hurry to buy the injections to immunize; and he attacked to the point of exhaustion the regional leaders who were trying to buy doses abroad on his behalf. More than 700,000 Brazilians died while he boasted about not having been vaccinated.

Nearing the end of his mandate, his plan was to travel to the United States to avoid attending Lula’s inauguration. However, there was a problem: the American authorities required a vaccination certificate. The police maintain that Bolsonaro conspired with his private secretary, Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, a deputy and a dozen other people in his circle to falsify his registration in the national registry. Cid has become the main source of the investigations against his former boss.

Follow all the information from El PAÍS América in Facebook y Xor in our newsletter semanal.