If it requests political asylum, and if it is granted by a foreign country with embassy in Brazil, the former president () may try to dodge a possible arrest arising from a conviction in lawsuit.
The asylum can be requested by anyone who considers himself a political persecuted, even if the case is not, in fact, the case. To occur, it is enough for the foreign embassy to accept the request. In the meantime Brazilian institutions such as may request the former president’s pre-trial detention if, based on contemporary and concrete facts, they identify that Bolsonaro seeks to escape from justice.
Despite having already admitted the possibility publicly, the former president denied on Tuesday (18), during an interview with West Magazine, that he will ask for the asylum after the opposition to see that the federal deputy (PL-SP) may have decided to.
The former Mandanker has in his historic episodes that may be considered evidence that he would appeal to asylum in case of condemnation of the coup plot, as a public speech on the subject last November, stay at the Embassy of, in February 2024, and travel to the United States after losing presidential elections.
He is currently denounced on charges of leading the coup plot. Next Tuesday (25), will accompany (Supreme Federal Court) that will decide whether to have a defendant. If the complaint is accepted, it will be tried by the court. If convicted, it can take more than 40 years in prison and increase ineligibility, which currently runs until 2030.
Bolsonaro already to avoid arrest in an interview with UOL in November, days after being indicted for due to the attempted coup.
“Embassy, from what I see in the history of the world, who is persecuted, can go there,” he said at the time. “If I should something, I would be in the United States, I wouldn’t have come back.”
His defense denies that he has, with the sentence, admitted the possibility. “On the contrary, he said that if he wanted to escape, he would have been in the US,” he told Sheet. “So the asylum is not a possibility. The president will remain in Brazil and respect the criminal proceedings.”
Bolsonaro has at least two more facts that could indicate his predisposition to adopt the measure if his situation was complicated in court.
In February 2024, he spent two days at the Hungary embassy in. The stay was four days after the PF retained its passport due to investigations involving the attempted coup.
He said the intention was not to ask for asylum, but to dialogue with international authorities. The PF opened an investigation to investigate the episode, but the minister of Alexandre de Moraes for lack of evidence that the former president tried the asylum.
Already in the former Mandanician for participation in the coup plot, the PF signaled that Bolsonaro would have traveled to the US after losing the 2022 elections to make it difficult to locate and eventual law enforcement.
The attempt to thwart the application of criminal law with the asylum, for example, may give rise to pre -trial detention. Ancient episodes, however, cannot be used later to substantiate a request for arrest, says Jordan Tomazelli, master in procedural law from UFES (Federal University of Espírito Santo).
He states that, like any individual, Bolsonaro can try an asylum request. However, if the Brazilian authorities identify, through concrete and current evidence, the intention of the former president of escaping the law, such investigation could base a request for preventive.
“Planning, trying or executing plan to thwart future criminal law application, at first, is not any crime, so it would not hold prison in the act. This conduct would meet a requirement provided for in CPP [Código de Processo Penal] For pre -trial detention decree, in a legal provision that aims to safeguard the regular progress of the process, “he says.
According to Evandro Menezes de Carvalho, Professor of International Law UFF (Fluminense Federal University) and FGV Rio, Bolsonaro would need to go to an embassy or consulate to make the asylum request.
If the embassy accepted, the Brazilian government could grant a saved from the former president, so that he could leave and go directly to an airport to take a plane to the country that granted the asylum.
Another possible scenario would be Brazil not to grant the saved. In this case, Bolsonaro would be asylum inside the embassy, where he would be protected from eventual sanctions due to the inviolability of the space. If I left, it could be the target of the measures of the Brazilian judiciary.
“In international practice, the diplomatic mission of a foreign country is an inviolable territory. So the Brazilian institution cannot order the police enter the foreign embassy. It can only enter if there is the authorization of the ambassador,” says Carvalho.
Currently, Bolsonaro could not, as Eduardo did, travel to another country and ask for asylum abroad, as he has a passport withheld by the court. An eventual granting of asylum to his child, however, could benefit him, as he would indicate the US predisposition to do the same with the former Mandanker, he plays Carvalho.
Clarisse Laupman, Professor of International Law at PUC-SP, explains that the political asylum is provided for in Article 4 of the Constitution.
To achieve this, the proponent needs to convince the embassy that he is a persecuted politician, since the institute is not valid for common crimes, which fits the attempted blow to Bolsonaro.
The point is that the granting of the asylum has a degree of subjectivity. “It’s not just a legal issue, it’s also political, cultural, ideological,” says Laupman.
In the case of Bolsonaro, it was already speculated that the former Mandanker could request the asylum to embassies of ideologically aligned countries with him, such as Hungary, Argentina and the USA.
