Bolsonaro denies having ordered his covid vaccination certificate to be falsified

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If any person included false data in their vaccination certificate or that of their family, “they did so on their own initiative and without authorization from the former president,” states a statement released by the lawyers of the far-right leader in Brazil, former president Jair Bolsonaro.

The former president “never determined or requested that any clearly illicit conduct be adopted in his name, so there is no evidence in the process of the former president’s conduct to the contrary, even because there was no need for it,” adds the release.

The note states that it is public and known worldwide that Bolsonaro, due to personal convictions, was never immunized against covid and that, when he traveled to the United States, on December 30, 2022, he did so in his capacity as head of state of Brazil. Therefore, he did not need a vaccination certificate to enter the North American country.

The defense released the statement after the Federal Police accused the far-right leader of “criminal association” and “use of false data in official records” for allegedly having requested a false vaccination certificate.

According to the Police, Bolsonaro took advantage of a criminal network that falsified vaccination cards so that beneficiaries could bypass health restrictions in Brazil and third countries during the pandemic.

The former aide-de-camp of the former ruler, Lieutenant-Colonel Mauro Cid, who agreed to collaborate with the investigations in exchange for judicial benefits, stated that Bolsonaro “gave him the order” to make a vaccination certificate for himself and another for his daughter Laura, today 13 years old.

Cid revealed at the police station that he “personally” delivered the irregular certificates to the then president.

The Police say they have evidence that the false certificates were issued at the end of December 2022, days before Bolsonaro traveled to the United States on the eve of the inauguration of the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

At the time it was mandatory to present the certificate to enter the United States, but the defense alleges that the president traveled with a diplomatic passport, which exempted him from such a requirement.

“For this reason, in filing charges, the police authority is hasty, at least in relation to the former president, since there is no founded and objective suspicion of his participation in the authorship of the crimes investigated,” states the defense note.

The lawyers add that, since the former president always said he was opposed to the vaccine, it makes no sense for him to carry a false certificate because, in that case, “he would be immediately recognized and publicly disqualified for the position he always presented on the matter.”

“If, for the reasons stated, neither the former president nor his daughter needed a certificate to travel, it is necessary to ask what would be the reasonable reason for them to risk a clandestine and criminal plan,” the defense alleges.

The investigation into the false certificate is one of three that the Federal Police is carrying out against the former president.

In another, he is suspected of having illegally appropriated during his mandate high-value gifts that he received on various trips abroad and that should be part of the State’s collection.

But the most serious is the one that places him at the center of the coup plot that sought to annul Lula’s electoral victory to remain in power.