FORMER Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro spoke to police for several hours yesterday as part of an investigation into the alleged forgery of Covid-19 vaccination certificates for himself and his inner circle.

Bolsonaro, whose house was raided as part of the same investigation earlier this month, arrived at the federal police headquarters in Brasilia around 1.40pm in a car with tinted windows, and left four hours later without speaking to the press, an AFP photographer said.

In his “approximately three hours” of testimony to police, the far-right, vaccine-sceptical former president denied involvement in the alleged plot, Bolsonaro adviser Fabio Wajngarten said on Twitter.

Bolsonaro “answered all the questions,” according to Wajngarten, and “reiterated that he had never been vaccinated, that he was unaware of any and all initiatives for eventual forgery, insertion, or adulteration in his vaccination card as well as that of his daughter.”

Federal police said they uncovered a scheme in which a top Bolsonaro aide, army colonel Mauro Cid, allegedly tapped a network of contacts in the health system and government to obtain fraudulent vaccination certificates for Bolsonaro, the president’s daughter, himself, his wife and daughters, and two other presidential aides.

Police have said there was evidence Bolsonaro was “fully aware” of the fraudulent entries in the Health Ministry’s electronic vaccination records system, which they said aimed to enable his anti-vaccine inner circle to dodge international travel requirements and other pandemic restrictions. – AFP, May 17, 2023.