Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his wife Michelle arrived at the Federal Police headquarters in Brasilia on Thursday to be interviewed as part of an investigation into the alleged misappropriation of jewelry donated by foreign countries.
This is the fifth time that the former far-right leader has been heard by the police since he left power at the end of December, after his defeat in the presidential election against Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (left).
Mr. Bolsonaro, the former First Lady and six of their close collaborators must answer questions from the police separately, and simultaneously, one of them from a police station in Sao Paulo.
An AFP photographer noted the arrival of several vehicles at the Federal Police headquarters in Brasilia a few minutes before the scheduled time for the start of the hearings (11:00 a.m. local time, 2:00 p.m. GMT). According to the media, Jair Bolsonaro was in one of them.
Investigators suspect his entourage of having resold some of these gifts, in particular luxury watches, for the “illicit enrichment” of the former head of state (2019-2022).
The latter thus risks imprisonment for laundering and illegal appropriation of public property.
According to the Court of Auditors of Brazil, only gifts “of a highly personal nature or of minimal monetary value” can be kept by the Brazilian president at the end of his mandate.
The federal police decided that the interrogations would take place simultaneously, which could reveal possible contradictions between the versions of the people heard.
The jewelry scandal erupted in March, when the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper revealed that senior officials had tried to smuggle a diamond jewelry set destined for Michelle Bolsonaro and donated by Saudi Arabia into Brazil without declaring it. beforehand.
But investigators report evidence showing that many other state gifts could have been misappropriated, such as a Rolex brand watch resold in the United States, then later bought by a lawyer for Mr. Bolsonaro.
A Supreme Court judge authorized two weeks ago the lifting of the banking secrecy of the ex-president and his wife to identify possible suspicious movements on their accounts related to this case.
Jair Bolsonaro had been heard by the federal police as part of this same investigation in April and had denied any wrongdoing.
Last week, Michelle Bolsonaro spoke of the scandal with irony. “We talk so much about jewelry that I will soon be launching the Mijoux line,” she said during an event organized by her party.
In addition to the criminal cases, Mr. Bolsonaro had trouble with the electoral justice system, which declared him ineligible for eight years at the end of June for having disseminated false information on the electronic ballot boxes.
08/31/2023 18:35:37 – Brasilia (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
