Bolsonaro’s home raided, phone seized in probe of vaccine records

Brasilia: Police have raided former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s home and seized his mobile phone as part of an investigation into his COVID-19 vaccination records.

The investigation may answer questions about how Bolsonaro, a strident coronavirus sceptic who vowed never to get a COVID vaccine, was registered as vaccinated in health records made public in February.

Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro speaks to the press outside his home before getting into a car after Federal Police agents carried out a search and seizure warrant.Credit: AP

A person familiar with the probe said federal police found evidence of tampering with Bolsonaro’s vaccine records in his last weeks as president in late December, before he flew to the United States, where most foreign visitors must be vaccinated to enter.

Bolsonaro confirmed the raid on his home in Brasilia to journalists and reiterated that he had never taken a COVID vaccine. He denied any role in allegedly forging documents.

“For my part, there was nothing falsified. I didn’t take the vaccine. Period,” he said, adding that his phone had been seized.

The vaccine probe is one of many pressuring the former far-right leader, including investigations into alleged voter suppression, attacks on the legitimacy of the elctoral process and embezzlement of foreign diplomatic gifts.

Security guards pass in front of the home of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro in Brasilia.Credit: AP

Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoing in those cases.

Federal police in a statement said they were serving 16 search warrants and six preventive arrest warrants in Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro as part of the operation but did not disclose the names of those targeted.

People familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to discuss an open investigation, said police had arrested Mauro Cid, one of Bolsonaro’s most trusted assistants, who stayed on as an aide when he stepped down in January.

Cid’s mobile phone had evidence that Bolsonaro was registered on December 21 as vaccinated against COVID, according to one of the sources. The entry, made in a public health office in Rio de Janeiro, was removed a week later, the source added.

Bolsonaro’s personal security officers Max Guilherme and Sergio Cordeiro, who have also stayed on as part of his detail, were also arrested in Wednesday’s operation.

Cid and the other aides could not immediately be reached for comment.

Police said they were investigating “false data” allegedly added to a national COVID-19 database between November 2021 and December 2022, while Bolsonaro was president.

“As a result, they were able to issue vaccine certificates and use them to circumvent restrictions imposed by public authorities in Brazil and the United States,” police said.

The investigation points to “ideological” reasons for circumventing vaccination rules, police said, “in order to keep up a discourse of attacking vaccination against COVID-19.”

“We trust that all legal doubts will be cleared up and it will be proven that Bolsonaro did not commit illegal acts,” Valdemar Costa Neto, the head of Bolsonaro’s political party, wrote on social media.

Reuters