Bolsonaro has a testimonial about the vaccine scheduled for Tuesday – 05/10/2023 – Power

Former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) is due to testify to the Federal Police next Tuesday (16) in the context of investigating fraud in vaccination cards in the Ministry of Health system.

On the last 3rd, the former Chief Executive was summoned to testify during a search and seizure carried out at his residence in Brasília. But the defense said at the time that he would not go and that he was waiting for access to the records before rescheduling the deposition.

The rapporteur of the case at the STF (Federal Supreme Court), Minister Alexandre de Moraes, authorized access to the file at the end of last week. As of Monday (8), Bolsonaro’s defense lawyers took turns reading the pages of the inquiry.

According to interlocutors of the former representative, the testimony has now been rescheduled for next Tuesday. Bolsonaro has in his defense the lawyers Paulo Cunha Bueno, Eduardo Kuntz, Daniel Tesser and Marcelo Bessa.

The measure comes within the scope of an investigation into an alleged “criminal association constituted for the commission of the crimes of inserting false vaccination data against Covid-19 in the SI-PNI and RNDS systems of the Ministry of Health.”

At the beginning of the month, in addition to the search and seizure operation at the former president’s house, the PF also arrested his advisors Mauro Cid and Max Guilherme. Another target of an arrest warrant was Sergio Cordeiro, who worked on Bolsonaro’s security team.

According to the Federal Police, the targets of the investigation are suspected of inserting false information between November 2021 and December 2022 so that beneficiaries could issue a vaccination certificate to travel to the United States.

There is suspicion that the vaccination records of Bolsonaro, Cid and the former president’s youngest daughter, Laura, would have been forged.

Bolsonaro’s allies, however, use as an argument the fact that the then president was not at the Planalto Palace on the days when his vaccine card was accessed in the SUS system through an IP address of the Presidency of the Republic.

They also say that he was not aware of the fraud, access and printing of the vaccine card, despite the evidence pointed out by the PF. Bolsonaro himself stated, on the day of the operation, that he had not been vaccinated.

“I didn’t take the vaccine. I was never asked for a vaccine card [para entrar nos EUA]. There is no tampering on my part. I didn’t get the vaccine, period. I never denied it. There were people who pressured me to take it, naturally. But I didn’t take it, because I read the Pfizer leaflet”, said the former chief executive.

Covid vaccines, like Pfizer’s, are safe and have been proven effective in scientific studies. More than 6 billion doses have been applied worldwide.

Bolsonaro was critical of vaccination against the coronavirus, spread lies on the subject and always said he had not been immunized. In the wake of last week’s operation, he claimed to have reiterated to the police themselves that he had never been vaccinated.

Bolsonaro supporters also say that his position against vaccines is widely known and that any attempt to enter a foreign country with an immunization certificate would, at the very least, generate strangeness among customs authorities.

In addition, the defense relies on the admission of guilt by Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid.

Allies of the former president believe that Cid will have no choice but to acknowledge having tampered with immunization certificates. At the same time, Bolsonaro’s lawyers are seeking to disassociate him from the episode.

The evaluation of the ex-president’s interlocutors heard by the Sheet is that the investigation by the Federal Police brought robust elements that are difficult for Cid to refute. They cite, for example, message exchanges and access from the military’s own cell phone to the account of the then representative in the ConectaSUS application.