Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his wife Michelle chose to remain silent on Thursday in the face of police investigating the alleged embezzlement of jewelry donated by foreign countries, a scandal that has been in the headlines for weeks.
Diamond adornment, watches or luxury pens: the investigators suspect the Bolsonaro couple of having illegally appropriated objects supposed to join the public heritage.
The former far-right leader was heard at the federal police headquarters in Brasilia for the fifth time since leaving power at the end of December, after his presidential defeat to left-wing leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva .
Sentenced at the end of June to eight years of ineligibility for having disseminated false information on the electronic ballot boxes before the ballot, Mr. Bolsonaro is indeed surrounded by a myriad of legal cases.
Thursday, the former head of state (2019-2022), the former first lady and six of their close collaborators were questioned separately, and simultaneously, one of them from a police station from Sao Paulo.
Jair and Michelle Bolsonaro have “made use of their right to silence”, can we read in a press release from their lawyers published in the local press.
These lawyers question the fact that the investigation is being carried out under the aegis of the Supreme Court, and not a trial court, and explain that their clients have decided “not to respond until they are faced with a competent judge” for this case.
“It is not a question of keeping silent. I am completely ready to express myself in the competent sphere and I cannot agree to testify in an inadequate framework”, declared the former First Lady in a press release posted on his Instagram account.
Investigators suspect some of the close collaborators summoned Thursday of having resold some of these gifts, in particular luxury watches, with a view to the “illicit enrichment” of the former president.
The latter, already heard on this case in April, risks prison for money laundering and illegal appropriation of public property. He has always denied any wrongdoing.
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 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 Frederik Wassef, a lawyer for the Bolsonaro family. .
The latter, who was heard Thursday in Sao Paulo, said he was “victim of a cowardly disinformation campaign” and assured “never to have committed the slightest irregularity”, in a brief statement to journalists at the entrance to the police station.
A Supreme Court judge authorized two weeks ago the lifting of the banking secrecy of the former head of state and his wife to identify possible suspicious movements on their accounts related to this case.
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.
The ex-president was also interviewed by the federal police at the end of April, about his alleged involvement in the riots of January 8, when Bolsonarist demonstrators ransacked places of power in Brasilia a week after Lula’s inauguration.
During another hearing by police in Brasilia in May, he denied involvement in the alleged falsification of Covid vaccination certificates, after a search of his home.
09/01/2023 00:50:25 – Brasilia (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
