Jair Bolsonaro must testify within ten days in the case of the January 8 riots, ordered a judge of the Federal Supreme Court, tightening the noose on the former Brazilian president of the extreme right, under the blow of five investigations of the high magistrates.
"Jair Messias Bolsonaro must be heard by the federal police within a maximum of ten days," said the decision of magistrate Alexandre de Moraes.
The federal police did not immediately indicate what the date of the summons of the former president would be.
The investigation into the alleged role in the riots of Jair Bolsonaro, who was on January 8 in Orlando, in the United States, had been launched on January 13 by Alexandre de Moraes.
On January 8, thousands of individuals refusing the defeat of the far-right ex-president stormed the Presidential Palace, Congress and the Supreme Court, a week after the inauguration of the Head of State. from left Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The attackers had easily crossed the security cordon to ransack everything in their path, including works of art of inestimable value.
The former president denies having had any role in the riots which saw more than 1,800 people arrested.
But the prosecution refers in particular to a video posted on January 10, two days after the riots, by Jair Bolsonaro, challenging the results of Lula's election.
Bolsonaro said he was "invigorated" on March 30 when he returned to Brazil after a three-month stay in the United States, but he knew he faced legal action with possible ineligibility and possible imprisonment.
This new announcement comes a week after the former president first testified before the police in Brasilia in the case of jewelry offered by the Saudi government and illegally entered Brazil.
Jair Bolsonaro had already spent about three hours on April 5 at police headquarters in the capital and left the scene without making a statement to the press.
A source close to the former president told AFP that Mr. Bolsonaro had denied to investigators that he had committed any offense and that he had not been aware of the jewelry seized until December 2022.
She also explained that subsequent efforts to return the jewelry were intended to avoid "diplomatic vexations", given the possibility that these high-value gifts from the Saudi state would eventually be auctioned off.
It was the first time that Mr. Bolsonaro appeared before the police as an ex-president, almost a week after his return to Brazil.
The case of the riots opposes her directly to her rival Lula. The President of Brazil said he was "certain" in early February that Jair Bolsonaro was the mastermind behind the January 8 attack on national institutions in Brasilia, and that he was thus seeking to carry out a "coup d'etat".
"Today I am aware and I say it loud and clear: this citizen prepared the coup," Lula said in an interview with local television channel RedeTV!.
Lula won the October poll by a narrow margin, with 50.9% of the vote, against 49.1% for the incumbent.
The violence in Brasilia recalled the invasion of the Capitol two years earlier in the United States, by supporters of Donald Trump refusing to accept his defeat by current American President Joe Biden.
Bolsonaro, who lost his immunity, is also under no less than 16 investigations by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE).
He could be sentenced to eight years of ineligibility, which would prevent him from running for president in 2026.
04/15/2023 00:08:30 - Brasilia (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
