Bolsonaro allies attribute Cid’s confession to despair – 08/17/2023 – Politics

Allies of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) see the change in the defense strategy of former aide Mauro Cid as a gesture of “despair”.

Cid, an army lieutenant colonel, will confess to having traded the jewels in the United States at the behest of the former president, said his lawyer, Cézar Bittencourt. The strategy of admitting his role and appointing Bolsonaro as the person in charge of the negotiation was revealed by Veja magazine and confirmed by the defender to Sheet.

Interlocutors of the former president recall that Cid has been imprisoned since May in the Army Battalion, in Brasília, and is worried about his family. He is detained, incidentally, for another investigation, under suspicion of tampering with his vaccination card.

The cell is 20 square meters. The soldier usually only leaves the site two hours a day, for a period of sunbathing in which he has a large space available for running and weight training.

The fear is that Cid will say whatever it takes to get out of jail, which they believe could happen. Bolsonaro’s interlocutors insist, however, that there may even be mess or immorality, but that there was no illegality in the former president’s actions. And that he didn’t order Cid to do what he did with the jewels.

Even before the operation started last week, the climate was already tense in the former aide-de-camp’s family.

Faced with the operation on Friday (11) in which the Federal Police targeted Cid and his father, General Mauro Cesar Lourena Cid, they were even more isolated, including among allies in the Army.

According to the general’s allies, he had been showing annoyance with the former president and felt that he and his son were abandoned.

The PF discovered that the two were involved in negotiations to sell gifts received by Bolsonaro on official trips. The goods are considered state, and Bolsonaro could not take over the valuable items, according to the understanding of the TCU (Tribunal de Contas da União).

“He confesses that he bought the jewelry evidently at the behest of the president. He bought it and sold it. Solve this deal and sell it,” said Cid’s lawyer about the sale of jewelry and watches.

Earlier, in an interview with Sheet, Bittencourt said he believes that the PF investigations against his client are mainly focused on Bolsonaro. “What they really want is the president [Jair Bolsonaro]not the Cid.”

Even with this perception, Bitencourt had retreated from Wednesday (16) to Thursday (17) —after a first and long conversation with Cid at the Army Battalion, in Brasília— and went on to state that the military not only followed orders .

“I have the impression that he had some autonomy. And more: if I make a mistake here, I fix it there. If I did something wrong here, I can fix it there”, completed the lawyer at the time. Before, he had stated to some communication vehicles that the client only followed orders from the boss.

The lawyer also said that he would interrupt the interviews at that first moment because “you irritate the other side”, in reference to the former president. “It’s good not to poke a bee with a short stick.” Soon after, however, he gave new interviews to communication vehicles.

Bitencourt is a former critic of the award-winning whistleblower, especially for the use of the institute during Operation Lava Jato and had ruled out this possibility in the case of Cid.