Bolsonaro ‘hid’ overnight in Hungarian embassy

JAIR BOLSONARO, the former president of Brazil, has been given 48 hours to explain why he stayed at the Hungarian embassy in the capital after having his passport confiscated last month for allegedly plotting a coup.

Judge Alexandre de Moraes, who is overseeing the probe into an alleged attempt to deny President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva’s 2022 election victory, was responding on Monday to media reports that Mr Bolsonaro slept over at the embassy in Brasilia on Feb 12 and 13.

The former president, a political ally of Hungary’s far-right prime minister Viktor Orban, has confirmed the twonight stay but denied wrongdoing.

“By chance staying over at the embassy, talking with the ambassador, is that a crime? Stop persecuting me,” Mr Bolsonaro told journalists at a rally in Sao Paulo for his wife Michelle. She is launching her own political career after her husband was banned from public office until 2030.

The former leader’s lawyer Fabio Wajngarten added on social media that his client had merely wanted “to get updates on the political landscape of both nations” and any other interpretation was “fake news”.

The admission has triggered speculation that Mr Bolsonaro, 69, was considering claiming political asylum. Many Latin American nations have a diplomatic tradition of allowing those already claiming refuge inside a foreign embassy safe passage to that country.

Since his presidency ended on January 1 last year, Mr Bolsonaro’s legal problems have mounted and he faces being jailed for years. He has been implicated in the storming of congress, the presidential palace and supreme court in Brasilia on Jan 8 last year, an apparent copycat uprising based on the January 6 insurgency in the US Capitol.

This month, the former heads of Brazil’s army and air force confirmed that Mr Bolsonaro had sought to persuade them to stop the handover of power to Mr da Silva. He also faces trial for faking his Covid-19 vaccination certificate.