Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered 90-day investigation to determine whether Jair Bolsonaro committed irregularities in purchasing COVID-19 vaccines

The Brazilian Attorney General’s Office will have within 90 days to investigate any irregularities that the president may have committed, Jair Bolsonaro, in negotiations on a vaccine against COVID-19, the Supreme Court reported on Saturday.

This term was set by the magistrate Rosa weber, a member of the Supreme Court who authorized the investigation, who must establish whether the president has procrastinated and other crimes in the negotiations for the purchase of the vaccine Covaxine, manufactured by the Indian pharmaceutical company Bharat Biotech.

The suspicions were encouraged by a Senate committee which tries to determine if the government is responsible for the worsening of a pandemic that has already killed more than 520,000 Brazilians.

In the case of the Indian vaccine, Caucus claims to have evidence Bolsonaro ignored information provided to him personally by pro-government MP about irregularities in intent to purchase contract, which was only suspended when suspicions were revealed by the commission and the local press.

This document, which envisaged 20 million doses of Covaxin, had a value of $ 420 million and, among other suspicious points, there was a side agreement that part of the payment was to be received by a Singapore-based company that was not in the contract.

Also, he acted like “intermediate“A Brazilian businessman who is already the subject of an investigation for corruption and who, in 2016, ‘sold’ to the Ministry of Health a batch of drugs that he never delivered.

If the prosecution finds solid evidence against Bolsonaro, must file a complaint with the Supreme Court that in case of reception, You can only start a trial with the approval of a two-thirds majority of 513 MPs.

In that case, the president would be suspended from office for the 180 days that the Supreme Court is expected to conclude the trial and removed from office if found guilty.

However, if the Chamber of Deputies did not authorize the process, the case would come to nothing and Bolsonaro would remain in power.

Suspicion of the government’s responsibility for advancing a pandemic which Bolsonaro still denies has emboldened the Brazilian opposition, which this week again asked Congress to open a trial for the impeachment of the president and this Saturday called protests across the country in support of this demand.

The Brazilian prosecution denounced the former Minister of Health Eduardo Pazuello for omission in the pandemic

The Brazilian prosecution filed a complaint to justice against the country’s former health minister on Friday Eduardo Pazuello for alleged omissions in the management of the pandemic and in the procurement of vaccines against the coronavirus.

In the complaint, signed by eight prosecutors, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) pointed out six “attitudes” of the former minister, including “Omission” and “negligence” in negotiations for the acquisition of vaccines, which would constitute an administrative irregularity offense.

For him, asks Pazuello to respond to courts for “violation of principles of Administration” and damage to public property, which total nearly 122 million reais (approximately $ 24.2 million).

“Former minister’s omission and neglect in negotiations for vaccine negotiations has cost society dearly“, Underlined the prosecutors in a note released to the press.

They added that “the resistance of the former Minister of Health to negotiate the hiring and acquisition of vaccines, with the necessary advance or planning, is unjustifiable and unreasonable”.

Pazuello, an army general with no medical training, had been in charge of the portfolio since May 2020, after his two predecessors fell due to differences with Bolsonaro over strategies to fight the pandemic.

(With information from EFE)

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