The Federal Police of Brazil accused former President Jair Bolsonaro of falsifying his COVID-19 vaccination record following investigations that began in January 2023. The Brazilian president was accused alongside 16 other people of forging his vaccination record and his daughter’s by inserting false information in the public health database in order to get false vaccination certificates that allowed them to travel to the US when the COVID-19 virus widely spread.

The charges brought by the police against Jair Bolsonaro are criminal association and insertion of false data into the public system. If convicted, the former president could spend up to 12 years in prison.

According to Bolsonaro’s lawyer Fabio Wajngarten, the whole case is a “political persecution” with the Brazilian police indictment being “as absurd as the whale case,” referring to an investigation against his client for “harassing” a humpback whale while taking a spin on his jetski during holidays. He pointed out that although the former Brazilian president was internationally known for his anti-vax opinion, he managed to provide over 600 million doses of vaccine during the pandemic. He also added that as president , Bolsonaro was exempted from presenting any kind of certificate proving that he had been vaccinated against COVID-19 during his travels. According to the lawyer’s words, it is all an attempt to “empty Bolsonaro ‘s enormous political capital that is only growing.”

Jair Bolsonaro was one of the world leaders who was opposed to COVID-19 vaccination campaigns. He ignored health restrictions recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), openly encouraging the public to do the same and ignore confinement measures. He was criticised both nationally and internationally for underestimating the pandemic’s severity. A group of Brazilian healthcare unionists filed a lawsuit against the former president to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in which they argued Bolsonaro’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic amounted to genocide. Furthermore, a report conducted in 2021 by Brazilian senators held Jair Bolsonaro responsible for COVID-19-related deaths of over 300,000 people.

Bolsonaro faces several other accusations aside from this indictment. He was subject to an investigation opened by the Minister of Justice and Public Security in January last year for allegedly committing genocide against the Indigenous Yanomami people in the Amazon and was recently accused by Brazil’s federal police of illegally spying on political opponents. Another investigation against the former Brazilian president relates to his involvement in a coup d’état to stay in power after he lost the December 2022 presidential elections against the current president Luiz Inàcio Lula da Silva, with claims that Bolsonaro was the person behind the events of what is known as the January 8 riots.