Brazilian police is seeking new charges against former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, this time for money laundering and criminal association tied with jewelry he got from Saudi Arabian authorities while in office, The Associated Press reported.
The outlet added that the country's Supreme Court has not yet received the indictment, but once it does the prosecutor general will analyze it and determine whether to file charges. Should that be the case, the former president would have to stand trial.
Concretely, police authorities said that Bolsonaro received about $70,000 in cash for the sale of two luxury watches he got as gifts from Saudi Arabia while president in 2019. They were a Rolex and a Patek Philippe. He had also been accused last year of attempting to sneak in jewelry worth $3 million as well as the watches.
Bolsonaro didn't immediately react to the news, but he has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing regarding all the charges pressed against him. One of his sons, Flávio, said on X that the indictment illustrated "blatant and shameless" persecution against him.
Other 10 people were indicted in the case, including Bolsonaro's former aide-de-camp, Mauro Cid, who has also been charged in another case about the forging of Bolsonaro's Covid-19 vaccination records.
The fraudulent certificates were used to "to obtain undue advantages related to the evasion of sanitary rules established during the pandemic period," police said. Following the announcement, the former president told Reuters that he had not taken the vaccine and denied any wrongdoing. "It's a selective investigation. I'm calm. The world knows that I didn't take the vaccine," he said.
Police found that a former aide of Bolsonaro, Mauro Cid, obtained the fraudulent records both for the then-President and his daughter Laura at his request. Cid entered a wide-ranging plea deal last year, in which he also said Bolsonaro sought to conduct a coup following the 2022 elections he lost against current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The Supreme Court is also overseeing the case investigating Bolsonaro's intent to stay in power after the elections, with evidence piling on against him. Last week, a former Army Chief revealed that Bolsonaro approached the top brass with a plan to conduct the coup in late 2022.
Initially found in the house of former Justice Minister Anderson Torres, Gomes said the draft is the same that Bolsonaro showed him in a meeting in December 2022. Concretely, it proposed declaring a state of defense and reversing the result of the presidential elect.
Bolsonaro is already ineligible to run for public office until 2030 after being found guilty of spreading electoral misinformation.
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