The federal police indictment released by the Supreme Court alleged that Bolsonaro and 16 others inserted false information into a public health database to make it appear as though the then-president, his 12-year-old daughter and several others in his circle had received the COVID-19 vaccine.
Police detective Fábio Alvarez Shor, who signed the indictment, said in his report that Bolsonaro and his aides changed their vaccination records in order to “issue their respective (vaccination) certificates and use them to cheat current health restrictions.”
During the pandemic, Bolsonaro was one of the few world leaders who was openly opposed to the vaccine. He rejected health restrictions and encouraged other Brazilians to follow his example. His administration ignored several offers from pharmaceutical company Pfizer to sell Brazil tens of millions of shots in 2020, and he openly criticized a move by Sao Paulo state’s governor to buy vaccines from Chinese company Sinovac when no other doses were available.
Bolsonaro's lawyer, Fábio Wajngarten, called his client’s indictment “absurd” and said he did not have access to it.
“When he was president, he was completely exempted from showing any kind of certificate on his trips. This is political persecution and an attempt to void the enormous political capital that has only grown,” Wajngarten said.
The former president denied any wrongdoing during questioning in May 2023.
Bolsonaro needed a certificate of vaccination to enter the U.S., where he remained for the final days of his term and the first months of Lula’s term. The former president has repeatedly said he has never taken a COVID-19 vaccine.
If convicted for falsifying health data, the 68-year-old politician could spend up to 12 years behind bars or as little as two years, according to legal analyst Zilan Costa. The maximum jail time for a charge of criminal association is four years, he said.
Bolsonaro retains staunch allegiance among his political base, as shown by an outpouring of support last month, when an estimated 185,000 people clogged Sao Paulo's main boulevard to decry what they — and the former president — characterize as political persecution.
The indictment will not turn off his backers and will only confirm his detractors’ suspicions, said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo.
