The (Supreme Federal Court) closed, on Friday (18), the siege against the possibility of the former president (PL) to try to escape from possible arrest for the trial of the coup plot when trying one.
The Court has determined that the former president start using or maintaining contacts with ambassadors and any foreign authorities. The decision speaks of “indications of the concrete possibility of escape from the defendant” and the need to ensure the application of criminal law.
The text also cites the possibility that the former president is incurring the same crimes investigated against Eduardo Bolsonaro (PL-SP), licensed federal deputy and one of his children.
The crimes cited are coercion in the course of the process, obstruction of criminal offense investigation involving criminal organization and violent abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law. It is also cited in the possible text attack on sovereignty, a crime provided for in the Penal Code.
Bolsonaro is a defendant in a criminal case in the Supreme Court that addresses the 2022 coup plot to prevent the president’s inauguration (PT). In this criminal action, he is accused of the crimes of coup, attempted abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law, armed criminal association, damage qualified to public property and deterioration of the listed assets.
If convicted, it can take more than 40 years in prison and increase its ineligibility, which currently runs until 2030.
The perception that the former president could request asylum to the United States has increased from recent demonstrations of the president of that country, The American made a series of posts and wrote one in which he spoke of “witch hunt” to Bolsonaro and asked the interruption of the trial of the coup plot.
The political asylum can be requested by anyone who considers himself a political persecuted, even if the case is not, in fact, the case. The required country grants the request or not to determine whether it considers it persecution.
To try the asylum, it would be enough for Bolsonaro to go to an embassy or consulate of the United States and make the request. The identification of the attempt of the former Mandanitor of trying the asylum, but would justify by the Brazilian authorities the adoption of precautionary measures such as the use of electronic anklet or pre-trial detention.
In Brazil, the US embassy is in Brasilia. The country has consulates in Porto Alegre, Recife, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, as well as a diplomatic office in Belo Horizonte.
If Bolsonaro could reach the embassy or consulate, make the request and the United States granted the asylum, the former president would be untouchable in the territory until he obtained a saved of the Brazilian government to leave the country and go to the United States.
According to Raphael Rocha, Professor of Law at UFJF (Federal University of Juiz de Fora) and PhD in International Law from UERJ (Rio de Janeiro State University), the saved-conduct is given via Executive Power, but could be barred by the Supreme Court, because Bolsonaro is a defendant in the coup plot.
“The Supreme Court, in the exercise of its constitutional jurisdiction, could identify that this act could be a violator of Brazilian sovereignty or public order. Therefore, he could lock the Executive from issuing the safe conduct,” he says.
With the precautionary measures on Friday, however, the hypotheses of Bolsonaro are further closing to escape justice through the asylum.
For Elaini Silva, PhD in International Law from USP and Professor at PUC-SP, the possibility that Bolsonaro could order to escape possible prison was real.
She recalls that the former president has in the historic stay in February 2024 at the Hungary embassy, in. The stay was four days after the PF retained his passport due to investigations involving the attempted coup.
“Bolsonaro, from the beginning, has shown signs that he does not want to stay in Brazil, that he wants to seek the asylum of foreign countries. But he has not achieved this kind of protection,” says Silva.
The former president also to avoid arrest in an interview with UOL in November 2024, 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.”
Already the former Mandanician for participation in the coup plot signals that Bolsonaro would have traveled to the US on the penultimate day of office in 2022, in order to make it difficult to locate and eventual application of the law.
Bolsonaro, however, currently denies that he would try to escape the country. The defense of the former president said he had received with “surprise and outrage the imposition of severe precautionary measures” against him, which, so far, “has always fulfilled all determinations of the judiciary,” he said.
