The Brazilian public prosecutor’s office has indicated that Jair Bolsonaro “performed public incitement to the execution of a crime” by broadcasting a video on social networks.
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, whose relatives have already been implicated, is now himself directly targeted by justice for his role in the ransacking of national institutions in Brasilia.
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes announced on Friday that he was including, as requested by the General Prosecutor’s Office, the far-right former head of state in his investigation to uncover the possible instigators of the January 8 violence in the Brazilian capital.
“A public incitement to the execution of a crime”
Jair Bolsonaro, narrowly beaten by the left-wing candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the October presidential election, “performed a public incitement to the execution of a crime” by posting on social networks a video “challenging the regularity of the presidential election of 2022”, explained the prosecution in a press release.
This video was published two days after the invasion of the headquarters of the presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court by thousands of bolsonarists, then erased, recalled the prosecution. But she could, according to him, provide “a link of proof” justifying “a global investigation into the acts carried out before and after January 8, 2023” by Jair Bolsonaro.
The former president “has never had the slightest connection or participation with these movements”, his lawyers said in a statement, attributing the violence in Brasilia to “infiltrated” elements.
10,000 euros spent in a bakery
Jair Bolsonaro, who has been in the United States since the end of December, had already been pinned on Friday for lavish expenses during his mandate, such as the 20,000 euros spent at once in a modest restaurant in northern Brazil or the 10,000 euros in a bakery the day after her son’s wedding.
Account statements for the presidential credit card over his four years in office (2019-2022) have been published on an official website of the Lula government, which has begun to lift a secrecy imposed for 100 years by his predecessor on thousands of official documents.
