Accused of having “deliberately exposed” Brazilians to “mass contamination” by COVID-19 by a Senate commission of inquiry, which on Wednesday asked for his indictment for ten crimes, President Jair Bolsonaro said to himself ” guilty of absolutely nothing ”.
“We know we did the right thing from the start,” he insisted at an official ceremony in the state of Ceara, in the northeast of the country.
The Senate committee’s final report, presented on Wednesday, however designates the far-right president as having been “primarily responsible for the government’s mistakes during the pandemic”, which has killed more than 600,000 in Brazil.
In addition to the “crime against humanity”, which can be tried at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, rapporteur Renan Calheiros has retained nine charges, ranging from “charlatanism” to “incitement to crime”, in going through “breaches of sanitary measures” and “prevarication”. “The president has committed many crimes, and he is going to pay,” committee chairman Omar Aziz said at the opening of Wednesday’s session.
Symbolic scope and political impact
These extremely serious accusations should nevertheless have an especially symbolic significance for the time being, Jair Bolsonaro benefiting from support in Parliament able to prevent him from opening an impeachment procedure.
The attorney general, Augusto Aras, one of his allies, can also block any indictment.
The political impact, however, could prove disastrous for this former army captain, whose popularity is already at an all-time low.
In this regard, he is far from certain of being re-elected in a year, as he is largely behind in the polls by the former left-wing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
For the senators, the crimes cited in the report are “intentional”, the Bolsonaro government having deliberately decided not to take the necessary measures to contain the circulation of the virus, hoping that the population achieves “collective immunity”, a strategy ” at high risk ”.
“After six months of intense work, this Parliamentary Commission has gathered evidence that shows that the federal government […] acted slowly in the fight against the pandemic caused by the coronavirus, deliberately exposing the population to a real risk of mass infection, ”summarizes this damning report of nearly 1,200 pages read in an abridged version by Renan Calheiros.
An “instrument of revenge”, denounces the Bolsonaro family
The Senate committee notably denounced the “deliberate delay” in the acquisition of vaccines, the Bolsonaro government having preferred to promote ineffective “early treatments” such as hydroxychloroquine against the virus, with “tragic consequences” for the population.
The commission also called for the indictment of four ministers and two former ministers. Three of the president’s sons have also been targeted for “incitement to crime” by spreading false information. “This report is an instrument of revenge against Bolsonaro and his family, it is obvious that neither my brothers nor I – and even less the president – have committed the slightest crime,” said Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the eldest. siblings, shortly before the presentation of the text.
The report will be sent to the judicial system, the sole competent authority to lay charges advanced by the Senate committee. In the case of Jair Bolsonaro, specialists consider this deposit unlikely, since it is the responsibility of the Attorney General.
In particular, the Senate committee investigated the government’s responsibility for the severe oxygen shortage that caused dozens of patients to suffocate death in Manaus, in the Amazon.
He also looked into suspicions of corruption in the purchase of vaccines, as well as the relationship between Brasília and private health mutuals, including Prevent Senior, who is suspected of having carried out experiments on his patients at their unknowingly.