The former president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, took refuge for two days last February in the Hungarian Embassy in Brasilia, as revealed this Monday by The
New York Times
in information based on recordings from four security cameras. of the residence.
The far-right arrived at the legation and was received by the ambassador on the night of February 12, four days after the justice system withdrew his passport as a precautionary measure while investigating him for plotting a coup d'état along with several retired soldiers and in asset.
Bolsonaro, who arrived with two men who would be his bodyguards, stayed until the afternoon of the 14th. The Brazilian Foreign Ministry has summoned the Hungarian ambassador.
Local authorities cannot detain a national on the grounds of a foreign embassy that he or she has entered with permission from its diplomats.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is one of Bolsonaro's main international allies.
For the American newspaper, the stay at the European embassy “suggests that the former president intended to take advantage of his friendship with another far-right leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, in an attempt to evade the Brazilian justice system while facing investigations. criminals in their country.”
Bolsonaro's defense, who did not want to speak to
The New York Times
, issued a note after the publication of the information.
He says that the stay responded to an invitation and that Bolsonaro took the opportunity to “talk with countless authorities from the friendly country to update the political scenarios of the two nations.”
The statement from his lawyers describes as “science fiction (…) any other interpretation that is extrapolated from the information provided here.”
Orban was, in 2019, one of the few foreign leaders, with the Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu, who attended Bolsonaro's inauguration.
The Brazilian and the Hungarian met last December in Buenos Aires, at the inauguration ceremony of ultra Javier Milei.
The judicial siege around Bolsonaro has not stopped tightening since he lost the elections and power.
He faces several investigations.
The most serious, that of preparing a coup d'état to prevent his archrival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from assuming power after the elections.
Another, for keeping some jewelry as a gift from the Saudi royal family.
And one more for falsifying his vaccination record.
In none of the three has he been charged so far.
The images taken by the security devices installed in the Hungarian embassy show the arrival and departure of Bolsonaro but, according to the newspaper, during most of his stay the former president is not in view of the cameras.
The Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, and the former Brazilian President Bolsonaro, at the inauguration of Javier Milei on December 10 in Buenos Aires. Agustin Marcarian (REUTERS)
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