Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been formally accused on Tuesday of falsifying his COVID-19 vaccination data, marking the first indictment for the leader.
The federal police indictment, released by the Supreme Court, alleges that Bolsonaro and 16 others inserted false information into a public health database to falsely indicate that the then-president, his 12-year-old daughter, and several others in his inner circle had received the COVID-19 vaccine.
Police detective Fábio Alvarez Shor, who signed the indictment, stated in his report that Bolsonaro and his aides altered their vaccination records to “obtain their respective vaccination certificates and use them to bypass current health restrictions.”
Shor stated that the investigation revealed numerous false entries made between November 2021 and December 2022, as well as multiple instances of using fraudulent documents.
During the pandemic, Bolsonaro stood out among world leaders by openly criticizing vaccines, disregarding health restrictions, and encouraging Brazilians to follow his lead. His administration declined multiple offers from Pfizer to sell tens of millions of vaccine doses to Brazil in 2020. Additionally, he publicly criticized the purchase of vaccines from the Chinese company Sinovac by the governor of Sao Paulo state when other vaccine options were limited.
The prosecutor-general's office of Brazil will ultimately decide whether to utilize the indictment to file charges against Bolsonaro at the Supreme Court. This case is part of several investigations targeting Bolsonaro during his tenure as president from 2019 to 2022.
Police have accused Bolsonaro and his aides of tampering with the health ministry's database shortly before his trip to the U.S. in December 2022. This incident occurred two months after he “lost” his reelection bid to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Bolsonaro required a vaccination certificate to enter the U.S., where he stayed for the final days of his term and the initial months of Lula's term as president.
If found guilty of falsifying health data, the 68-year-old politician could face a prison sentence of up to 12 years 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 added.
