Brazilian police search Jair Bolsonaro mansion and arrest aide

[muriel_volestrangler]

Federal police have searched the mansion of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro and arrested one of his closest aides as part of an investigation into suspected criminal efforts to fake Covid-19 vaccination records in order to travel to the US.

Lt Col Mauro Cid Barbosa, described by the Brazilian press as Bolsonaro’s “right-hand man”, was one of six people arrested on Wednesday morning as police raided multiple addresses in the capital, Brasília, and Rio de Janeiro.

Two of Bolsonaro’s security guards were also taken into custody. The ex-president had initially been expected to be questioned later on Wednesday but was reportedly refusing to appear before police. Bolsonaro’s mobile phone was seized at his residence in Brasília and he was obliged to hand over the password after initially resisting.

Federal police reportedly believe a series of official Covid vaccination records were falsified on Brazil’s health ministry database in order to produce bogus vaccination certificates that would permit international travel, including to the US.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/03/brazilian-police-search-jair-bolsonaro-mansion-arrest-aide

Jesus, just get vaccinated, you wimp.

Bolsonaro went on Jovem Pan, Brazil’s answer to Fox News, and cried about political persecution. (He once claimed that Covid vaccines would turn people into crocodiles, giving new meaning to the phrase ‘crocodile tears’.) There is little doubt, however, that Bolsonaro genuinely feels he is a victim of a conspiracy. He was now been accused of 21 electoral crimes, which are likely to make him ineligible for public office until 2030. There are also seven criminal investigations underway, with allegations ranging from diamond smuggling to mismanaging the pandemic.

The authorities have the computers that Cid was using in Planalto, as well as his cell phone, which may reveal new facts about the planning of 8 January, since Cid appears to have been the key intermediary between Bolsonaro and the architects of the coup attempt – many of them, like Cid, serving military officers. He is likely to be called before the congressional committee investigating how 8 January was organised. His father, a serving general, lived with Bolsonaro in the barracks, and was part of the same graduating class. Such ties bind: Cid filho is unlikely to give up his boss. Yet he is the missing link.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2023/may/bolsonaro-humiliated

[Judi Lynn]

1. Bolsonaro needs his valiant young Cid to protect him from the terrifying vaccine.

"Fetch that stick, Cid."