BRASILIA, Brazil: Then Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro ordered an aide to sell undeclared luxury jewelry received as a gift and funnel the money to him, a lawyer for the aide charged Friday.
Cezar Bittencourt, who represents Bolsonaro’s former right-hand man, Lt. Col. Mauro Cid, said his client had recounted receiving those orders from Bolsonaro shortly before the president left office at the end of last year.
The claim was initially reported in an interview published Friday by the Brazilian magazine Veja, and Bittencourt confirmed his comments in a phone call with The Associated Press.
Bittencourt said that in December 2022, Cid asked about a Rolex watch the president was given by government of Saudi Arabia in 2019. Bolsonaro replied that Cid should “deal with it,” which eventually led to the aide selling two watches in the US and handing the money to Bolsonaro, the attorney said.
A week ago, Brazil’s Federal Police charged that Bolsonaro received cash from the nearly $70,000 sale of the two watches. They were part of a total of three sets of jewelry given to the then president by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Officials from Bolsonaro’s office brought the jewelry into Brazil without declaring them, which sparked suspicions of money laundering and illegal personal possession of government items. That investigation became public in March.
Brazil requires citizens arriving by plane from abroad to declare goods worth more than $1,000 and pay a tax of 50 percent of the value above that threshold. The jewelry would be exempt from tax if it was an official gift to Brazil, but would not have been Bolsonaro’s to keep.
Bolsonaro and his lawyers contend the sets of jewelry were personal gifts and therefore can be sold as he wishes. Investigators say he did not register the jewelry in his personal collection until just before he left office.
When the matter became public in March, Bolsonaro initially said he did not know about the gifts, but his camp has given various versions. On Friday, Bolsonaro said in a video to the Brazilian newspaper Estadao that Cid had autonomy on how to handle the jewelry and did not receive orders.
Bittencourt’s report on Cid’s claim is the first time the former aide has spoken publicly about the jewelry. Cid was arrested in May on accusations of falsifying COVID-19 vaccine cards for members of his own family and for Bolsonaro and his family.
In July, Cid was called to testify to a special congressional committee that is investigating the Jan. 8 rampage by Bolsonaro’s supporters in the capital, Brasilia. He remained silent throughout the entire session.
On Friday, seven high-ranking military police officers were arrested in connection with the Jan. 8 attacks.
A few hours later, Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes authorized the lifting of bank secrecy for Bolsonaro and Cid’s accounts in the US.
Brazil’s Bolsonaro accused by ex-aide’s lawyer of ordering sale of jewelry given as official gift
https://arab.news/4cy39
Brazil’s Bolsonaro accused by ex-aide’s lawyer of ordering sale of jewelry given as official gift
- In an inerview with Brazilian magazine Veja, Lt. Col. Mauro Cid recounted receiving those orders from Bolsonaro shortly before the president left office at the end of last year
- Bolsonaro and his lawyers contend the sets of jewelry were personal gifts and therefore can be sold as he wishes
Russia says foreign forces in Ukraine would be ‘legitimate targets’
- Moscow has repeatedly said it will not tolerate the presence in Ukraine of troops from Western countries
MOSCOW: Russia would regard the deployment of any foreign military forces or infrastructure in Ukraine as foreign intervention and treat those forces as legitimate targets, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday, citing Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The ministry’s comment, one of many it said were in response to questions put to Lavrov, also praised US President Donald Trump’s efforts at working for a resolution of the war and said he understood the fundamental reasons behind the conflict.
“The deployment of military units, facilities, warehouses, and other infrastructure of Western countries in Ukraine is unacceptable to us and will be regarded as foreign intervention posing a direct threat to Russia’s security,” the ministry said on its website.
It said Western countries — which have discussed a possible deployment to Ukraine to help secure any peace deal — had to understand “that all foreign military contingents, including German ones, if deployed in Ukraine, will become legitimate targets for the Russian Armed Forces.”
The United States has spearheaded efforts to hold talks aimed at ending the conflict in Ukraine and a second three-sided meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives is to take place this week in the United Arab Emirates.
The issue of ceding internationally recognized Ukrainian territory to Russia remains a major stumbling block. Kyiv rejects Russian calls for it to give up all of its Donbas region, including territory Moscow’s forces have not captured.
Moscow has repeatedly said it will not tolerate the presence in Ukraine of troops from Western countries.
The ministry said Moscow valued the “purposeful efforts” of the Trump administration in working toward a resolution and understanding Russia’s long-running concerns about NATO’s eastward expansion and its overtures to Ukraine.
It described Trump as “one of the few Western politicians who not only immediately refused to advance meaningless and destructive preconditions for starting a substantive dialogue with Moscow on the Ukrainian crisis, but also publicly spoke about its root causes.”
