Brazil: Jair Bolsonaro indicted for allegedly falsifying COVID-19 vaccination data

On Tuesday, the Brazil Federal Police charged former president Jair Bolsonaro with allegedly falsifying his vaccination data, along with his 12-year-old daughter's, during his final days in office.

It all started with a confession by his former right-hand man, Colonel Mauro Cid. The colonel, according to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, recently took a plea bargain. Since then, he has been confessing to some of the illegal practices he carried out with the former president between 2019 and 2022. His most recent confession was that Jair Bolsonaro and his daughter Laura were not vaccinated before traveling to the United States.

According to Colonel Mauro Cid, he received "the order from former President Jair Bolsonaro to falsify his data, along with his daughter Laura Bolsonaro's information; He demanded that these certificates be printed and hand-delivered to the president."

Supreme Court judge claims Bolsonaro falsified vaccination data before traveling to the U.S.

This means that neither was vaccinated and instead, according to authorities, falsified data so that they would not be denied entry into the United States. This was done days before traveling to Orlando and just before Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his political rival, took power on January 1, 2023.

Alexandre de Moraes, a Supreme Federal Court judge (STF), claims this was not accidental. He believes it shows that he was preparing to leave the country because of what could happen:

The former president of Brazil was a very vocal opponent of COVID-19 vaccines and health restrictions.