Bolsonaro completes testimony to the PF about jewelry case after 3 hours

After about three hours, former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) ended his testimony to the Federal Police on the case of jewelry received from Saudi Arabian authorities in October 2021.
Bolsonaro arrived at the PF headquarters in Brasília around 2:20 pm this Wednesday (5) and was heard by two police officers.
In addition to him, also testified this Wednesday, but in São Paulo, his then aide-de-camp, army lieutenant colonel Mauro Cid.
In Brasília, there was an expectation that Bolsonaro supporters would be able to receive him at the PF headquarters, which did not happen. Only one man wearing a Brazilian shirt was in front of the building during the afternoon.
He preferred not to give an interview to the report. but he said that other people said, in messaging app groups, that they would come, and he doesn’t know why they didn’t.
Bolsonaro’s hearing was conducted by two delegates: Adalto Machado, responsible for the investigation at the PF in São Paulo, and another from the DIP (Police Intelligence Directorate), a sector located in the institution’s central building, in Brasília.
Machado has been conducting the case since the initiation of the inquiry at the PF’s Tax Repression Police Station in São Paulo.
In addition to Bolsonaro and Cid, other people will be heard to advance the investigation into the jewels received in October 2021 by the entourage led by then Minister Bento Albuquerque.
One of the jewelry cases brought by the team was seized by the Federal Revenue during an inspection at the Guarulhos airport, so the investigation is in São Paulo.
A military adviser to the then Minister of Mines and Energy tried to enter the country with luxury items in his backpack. As they had not been declared, the goods were seized by the Federal Revenue – the case was revealed by the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo.
As Folha de S.Paulo showed, the former representative even discussed the matter with the then head of the Federal Revenue Julio Cesar Vieira Gomes last December.
A second package, which includes a watch, pen, cufflinks, ring and a type of rosary, all also from the Swiss diamond brand Chopard and later delivered to Bolsonaro, was not intercepted by the Revenue, as shown by Folha de S.Paulo.
An official receipt recorded the delivery of this second set to the Presidency in November 2022, to compose the former president’s personal collection.
The former minister reported in a statement that the second case entered the country with him before being delivered to the Presidency.
On Tuesday (4), Bolsonaro’s defense department delivered a third jewelry kit received from Saudi Arabia to a Caixa Econômica Federal agency, this one delivered on a previous trip. The measure complied with a determination by the TCU (Union Court of Auditors).
Composed of a Rolex watch, cufflinks, a white gold ring, a Chopard pen and a type of rosary, this case was given to Bolsonaro when he visited Saudi Arabia in October 2019. The package became part of his collection private in the following month, as shown by Folha de S.Paulo.
At first, Bolsonaro said he had neither asked nor received any kind of jewelry gift from the Saudi Arabian government.
On Thursday (30), upon returning to Brazil after 89 days in the United States, Bolsonaro confirmed that he had received the jewelry and linked the gift to the friendship he built with the government of Saudi Arabia.
He also confirmed that part of the gifts were for First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro and the attempt at the end of the term to recover the jewels in Guarulhos.
“We delivered the first set that arrived at the Presidency there. I registered it. And, trying to recover the other set from Michelle, it was via letter, it was not in the big hand. I don’t know why all this wave. If they are thinking of it as something I did wrong, I’m even happy, there’s nothing to accuse me of”, he said.