Former President Jair Bolsonaro has been ordered by a Brazilian court to hand over jewelry that he allegedly got as a gift from the Saudi kingdom while serving as president.
After a police probe into an alleged effort to smuggle a set of jewelry worth more than $3.2 million into the nation, Brazil’s federal audit court made its ruling on Wednesday.
Customs agents seized those ornaments in 2021 and learned they were meant for the president at the time and his wife Michelle. But, investigators are expecting to find a second set of jewelry that is thought to have entered the nation undetected and is worth about $75,000.
The jewelry sets are said to have been presents from the Saudi government.
According to the court ruling issued on Wednesday, Bolsonaro has five days to hand over any jewelry he may have gotten from Saudi Arabia as well as two weapons he obtained from the United Arab Emirates in 2019.
The decision also starts an audit of every official gift Bolsonaro received throughout his four-year term as president, from 2019 to 2022.
In addition, the court ruled that the $3.2 million worth of jewelry will remain in custody at the presidential offices.
While the far-right leader was in charge, members of Bolsonaro’s cabinet had already tried unsuccessfully to release the jewelry.
A diamond necklace, ring, watch, and pair of earrings from the prestigious Swiss jeweler Chopard are included in the set. The jewelry was found in the energy minister’s assistant’s backpack after the staff member had returned from a trip to Saudi Arabia.
According to Brazilian law, public servants are only permitted to keep gifts that are “both very personal and of limited monetary value,” said the court’s president Bruno Dantas during the open session.
Also, visitors to Brazil who bring in products worth more than $1,000 must report them and pay high import duties.
The products may have been imported tax-free by Bolsonaro’s administration as gifts to the country. But instead of the president and his family, they would have belonged to the collection of the presidential palace.
The presidential palace, according to Dantas, is “the rightful owner” of the aforementioned things.
Since it was initially revealed in the Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper in early March, the subject has dominated headlines in Brazil.
Flavio Dino, the justice minister, called on police to look into whether Bolsonaro’s employees attempted to cross the border “without complying with legal procedures” for gifts to the government or expensive items last week when he announced an investigation into the jewelry incident.
Bolsonaro, who told CNN Brazil he was being “crucified” for a present he neither sought nor accepted, has denied any involvement in unlawful activities.
Jair Bolsonaro has been ordered to hand over jewellery reportedly gifted by the Saudi Arabian government
But, on Monday, his attorney confirmed the second set of presents of jewelry and promised to give police an account of them in a letter.
Since late December, just before his left-leaning successor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was scheduled to enter office, Bolsonaro has been residing in the US. In the October presidential run-off, Lula defeated Bolsonaro.
Yet Bolsonaro has yet to admit defeat. Without providing any proof, he and his political allies asserted that Brazil’s electoral process was prone to fraud, which prompted some of their supporters to advocate for a military takeover to remove Lula from office.
For his possible involvement in the January 8 attack that saw Bolsonaro’s supporters overrun important government buildings in the nation’s capital, Brasilia, an investigation has been opened.
