Jair Bolsonaro has been formally accused of embezzlement after he allegedly misappropriated jewellery worth £2.5 million from Saudi Arabia, two police sources told Reuters.
The accusations against Brazil’s former president by the country’s federal police also include money laundering and criminal association for allegedly misappropriating the expensive state gifts, one of the sources said.
Though Mr Bolsonaro has not been officially charged, his case will now go before a court in line with Brazilian law and be put before a judge who will decide whether to proceed with the case.
Observers have said that it is unlikely prosecutors would have accused a former president of such crimes if they didn’t consider they had solid evidence.
The accusations follow raids last year on the homes of military officers close to Mr Bolsonaro, who are alleged to have helped him get rid of the jewellery.
He is alleged to have had some of the diamond-encrusted valuables smuggled to the United States, where his aides sold two watches, one a Rolex and the other a Patek Philippe, for $70,000 (£54,600).
The case is the second time police have formally accused Bolsonaro, 69, of a crime. In May, he was charged with falsifying his Covid vaccination record.
During the pandemic, he pushed ivermectin, an antiparasitic used to treat farm animals, as a cure and was accused of causing the avoidable deaths of hundreds of thousands of Brazilians.
The former president has yet to respond to the allegations, but his eldest son, Flavio, a senator, claimed on X, formerly Twitter, that his father was the victim of “persecution” by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the current Leftist president. He added that the case against his father was “blatant and shameless”.
The jewellery, some of it made by Chopard of Switzerland, was valued at $3.2 million and included a diamond necklace, ring, watch and earrings given to Mr Bolsonaro and his wife, Michelle, the former first lady of Brazil, by the Saudi government.
Other parts of the luxury collection were reportedly seized by customs officials at Sao Paulo airport in 2021 when they were allegedly found in the luggage of an aide to Mr Bolsonaro as he returned from Riyadh.
According to prosecutors, the jewellery should have been stored at an official government site rather than treated as the Bolsonaro family’s personal property.
Separately, Mr Bolsonaro is also being investigated for his alleged role in a January 2023 uprising in the capital, Brasilia, when a mob stormed the congress and supreme court in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2022 presidential election, after Mr Bolsonaro narrowly lost his bid for re-election.
Mr Bolsonaro said in the wake of the riot that he “never had any relationship or participation with these spontaneous social movements”.
Source Agencies
