TCU MP asks Bolsonaro to deliver jewelry to the Union – 03/10/2023 – Power

The deputy attorney general of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the TCU (Union Court of Auditors) Lucas Furtado filed an appeal against the court’s decision on luxury goods sent by the government of Saudi Arabia to former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and his wife, former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro. Furtado argued that jewelry and other luxury items cannot remain in Bolsonaro’s private collection.

The precautionary measure signed by TCU minister Augusto Nardes this Thursday (9) prohibited the former president from using or selling the items given to him as a gift – but did not determine their restitution to the Union’s assets.

In the appeal, Furtado argued that it was essential that the material evidence of alleged crimes be under the scrutiny of the police authority for expert purposes, and not in the possession of the investigated person.

Therefore, he asked that the alleged gifts given by Saudi Arabia be returned to the custody of the Union within five days.

“In this way, the assets can be reincorporated into the Union’s assets and be duly examined for criminal purposes that may be necessary”, he said.

If the measure is not complied with, Furtado suggests withholding the remuneration that Bolsonaro would receive as former President of the Republic. Despite the prosecutor’s manifestation, Bolsonaro does not receive a salary as a former president. He is entitled to a team of advisors, official vehicle and certain types of reimbursement.

As a retired captain of the Brazilian Army, the former president has a pension from the Armed Forces. He also has another for his time serving as a parliamentarian.

Furtado also recommends that weapons received as gifts by Bolsonaro be entrusted to the Army or the Federal Police and that jewelry be displayed in a public museum, or at the TCU, “with the necessary security measures taken”.

According to the Metrópoles portal, in 2019 Bolsonaro returned from an official trip to the Middle East with a pistol and a rifle, presented by the government of the United Arab Emirates.

Furtado proposes, as an alternative, that the goods be put up for sale at auction, with the resources raised going towards the social programs of the current government, such as Minha Casa Minha Vida or Bolsa Família.

The deputy prosecutor argued that, every new day, he “wakes up and is faced with the amazing developments of this story of the alleged Arab gifts received by the Bolsonaro couple”.

The case of the jewels, according to him, “reveals to be increasingly scabrous and with successive chapters that become more complex and with the insertion of new elements and suspicions”, having the impression of being immersed in a film by American director Quentin Tarantino .

“I emphasize that I am not saying here that the public managers involved in the facts under investigation in the aforementioned processes have a performance in the real world equal to that of Tarantino’s characters. I am just highlighting the similarity between the director’s films and the history of jewelry and gifts supposedly offered by Saudi Arabia to the Bolsonaro family from the strict point of view of the stylistic elements contained in these films, such as the recurring presence, in the plots, of objects such as jewelry and weapons and the succession of new facts”, he says.

In October 2021, former Minister of Mines and Energy Bento Albuquerque led a delegation to an international event in Saudi Arabia. On his return, an advisor to the then minister had luxury items seized by the Revenue Service at the airport in Guarulhos (SP), including a necklace, earrings, a ring and a watch by the Swiss brand Chopard. The value of these objects was estimated at around R$16.5 million.

They would be gifts from the Saudi government to the then First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro.

A second case entered the country without a declaration to the Revenue and was incorporated into Bolsonaro’s personal collection. It contained a watch, pen, cufflinks, a type of rosary and a ring, also by the Swiss brand Chopard. There is no estimated value of this second package.

During his tenure at the Presidency of the Republic, Bolsonaro accumulated a collection of 44 watches, 74 knives, 54 necklaces, 112 ties, 618 caps, 448 football shirts and 245 face protection masks, as well as ammunition and a bulletproof vest.

The private collection of the President of the Republic, according to the legislation, can even be sold, as long as the Union’s right of preference is respected after evaluating any possible public interest.

In his decision, Nardes said that the reported indications “reveal to be of high gravity, either due to the value of the objects questioned, or due to the relevance of the positions occupied by the eventual authors of the irregularities dealt with”.

“However, with the exception of reports researched by the representatives in vehicles of great circulation, there is not enough documentation for a definitive conclusion of this court regarding the best way to be given to the present process”, he argued.

The government’s supposed resistance to declaring jewelry and watches a public good directly contradicts the understanding established by the TCU in 2016. At the time, the TCU filled a legal vacuum on the subject, which even resulted in the return of approximately of 500 gifts that were in the private collections of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and Dilma Rousseff (PT).