Brazilian police suggested today to prosecute the former president of Brazil, Jáich Bolsonaro, considering that he has sufficient evidence to charge him with falsification of vaccination certificates against Covid-19.

The police investigation report has been submitted to the attorney general’s office which will have to decide whether or not there are grounds to prosecute.

According to the federal police, Bolsonaro and eight other persons are involved in the forgery of vaccination certificateswith the aim of “gaining advantages associated with bypassing sanitary measures during the pandemic”.

The events unfolded between November 2021 and December 2022, according to the 231-page report.

Bolsonaro traveled to the US in December 2022, two days before his term expired and before the inauguration of Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, whom he defeated in the election.

Bolsonaro’s daughter his former close associate Mauro Cid, other advisers and an MP allegedly benefited from this scam.

Police are seeking prosecution on charges of forming a gang for the purpose of entering false data into the public system.

Fabio Weingarten, Bolsonaro’s lawyer, denounced what he called this “political prosecution.” He claimed that during his time as president, the 68-year-old Bolsonaro was not required to show any certificates when he was to travel. The former president had given a statement last May to the federal police, in Brasilia, about this case and his house was searched. At the time, he had denied the charges and claimed the authorities were trying to “build” a case against him.

In a parallel investigation, Brazil’s audit agency concluded in January that Bolsonaro’s vaccination certificate was ‘fake’ as “inconsistencies” were found between the files of the Ministry of Health and other official organizations. The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether federal employees were involved in the forgery. However, the agency recommended that the case be dropped because there was “insufficient evidence” to find the real culprits since a large number of employees had access to the information system and could have entered the false data.

During his tenure (2019-22) bolsonaro never stopped criticizing covid-19 vaccines, asserting that he himself did not intend to be vaccinated against the disease that claimed the lives of 700,000 people in Brazil. He also admitted afterwards that he was not vaccinated.