Conservative former President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro, who will soon stand trial on charges of trying to poison radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said this weekend that a possible prison sentence would mark the “end of his life.”
Bolsonaro, 70, stands accused of allegedly conspiring with several dozen others to stage a “coup” and override the results of the 2022 presidential election, which he narrowly lost against Lula. Bolsonaro could face up to 39 years in prison if found guilty of all charges in the yet-to-be-scheduled trial.
The former president spoke on Saturday with the with the left-wing Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo and asserted that – although he discussed with his aides measures enshrined in the Brazilian constitution to maintain public order amid a “serious and imminent institutional instability” such as “a state of siege, a state of defense and federal intervention in 2022” – all those possibilities were ruled out “right away.”
“It’s the end of my life. I’m already 70 years old,” Bolsonaro answered when asked if a possible arrest would mean the end of his political career.
“A possible arrest would be completely unjust. Where is my crime? Where did I break something [a law]? Where is the proof of a possible coup? Other than discussing constitutional provisions that haven’t left the realm of words,” he added.
Folha asked Bolsonaro if he is considering seeking political asylum in the United States similar to how one of his sons, lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro, has done. The younger Bolsonaro announced in mid-March that he will seek U.S. asylum on the grounds that he is the target of a persecution campaign led by Brazilian Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) Minister Alexandre de Moraes — who is also the rapporteur of the purported coup case against Bolsonaro.
“Zero, zero, zero. I think I look good here,” Bolsonaro answered. “I’m 70 years old, I feel good. I want the good of my country.”
Folha also asked Bolsonaro about a recent request by Brazilian Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet for the Brazilian top court to drop separate charges against Bolsonaro on accusations that he allegedly falsified a Wuhan coronavirus vaccine card to enter the United States between December 2022 and March 2023 – at a time when the administration of former U.S. President Joe Biden maintained strict vaccination requirements for foreigners.
According to a plea deal testimony provided by Mauro Cid, Bolsonaro’s former aide-de-camp, he allegedly helped Bolsonaro forge a fraudulent coronavirus vaccination record that allowed the former president, a staunch critic of the coronavirus vaccine products promoted during the pandemic, to travel the United States. Last week, Prosecutor General Gonet argued in his request to the STF that Cid’s testimony alone was not sufficient to proceed with a trial in that regard.
“I would never make a request like that to anyone, it would demoralize me politically, because I have always been against the vaccine, which to this day is an experiment,” Bolsonaro said in the interview. “To follow the rule, a whistleblower has to be spontaneous, tell the truth and have proof. So much so that Gonet came to the conclusion that there was not the slightest evidence that I had ordered the card to be forged.”
Bolsonaro added that, “if it had been Lava Jato [“Operation Car Wash,” a nationwide corruption investigation in the 2010s that led to the arrest of Lula] this request to close the case would have annulled everything.”
In 2021, the STF overturned Lula’s conviction on procedural grounds — but without challenging any of the evidence that led to the original sentence — allowing Lula to once again run for office in 2022.
Brazilian President Lula da Silva referred to Bolsonaro’s upcoming trial on Saturday in remarks in Vietnam on the occasion of his official visit to the Asian nation. Lula claimed to reporters that Bolsonaro “knows he did the stupid things he’s being accused of.”
“He doesn’t even want to defend himself because he knows, in his subconscious, that he did all the stupid things he’s being accused of,” Lula said. The president questioned an amnesty bill presented by pro-Bolsonaro lawmakers that seeks to grant amnesty to the nearly 900 individuals involved in the January 8 riots, describing it as not “the main subject for anyone, except for those who are blaming themselves.”
Last week, during his official visit to Japan, Lula said that Bolsonaro should, “instead of crying, come to terms” with having become a defendant in the upcoming trial in remarks given to reporters during a joint press conference in Tokyo with Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru.
“It’s not the man Bolsonaro who is on trial, it’s a coup d’état that is on trial. It is the conduct of this citizen that is being judged,” Lula said. “So, I think that if he is guilty, he has to be satisfied with the punishment, and that goes for all 213 million inhabitants. So, instead of crying, come to reality and know that you committed an act against the sovereignty of the country.”
Bolsonaro, who was banned from running for office until 2030 for allegedly having spread “misinformation” about Brazil’s electoral voting machines, was the target of a censorship campaign by de Moraes — a self-styled “anti-fake news crusader” — during the 2022 presidential campaign. De Moraes prohibited the campaign and journalists from calling Lula a “thief” or “criminal” in reference to the Brazilian president’s past multiple convictions on corruption charges.
On Sunday, the STF ruled to reject an appeal presented by Bolsonaro’s legal team against a conviction for “irregular electoral propaganda” in the 2022 election — upholding a fine of 40,000 Brazilian reais (toughly $6,960) on Bolsonaro for promoting ten online advertisement that led users to a website with “negative propaganda” content against Lula. Bolsonaro’s legal team filed the now-rejected appeal under grounds that it violated Bolsonaro’s freedom of speech.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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