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
Kabul shakes as 5.8-magnitude earthquake hits eastern Afghanistan
- The 5.8-magnitude quake struck a mountainous area around 130 kilometers northeast of Kabul
- Earthquakes are common in Afghanistan, particularly along the Hindu Kush mountain range
KABUL: A strong earthquake rocked eastern Afghanistan including the capital Kabul on Friday, AFP journalists and residents said.
The 5.8-magnitude quake struck a mountainous area around 130 kilometers (80 miles) northeast of Kabul, the United States Geological Survey said.
The epicenter was near several remote villages and struck at 5:39 p.m. (1309 GMT), just as people in the Muslim-majority country were sitting down to break their Ramadan fast.
“We were waiting to do our iftars, a heavy earthquake shook us. It was very strong, it went on for almost 30 seconds,” said Zilgay Talabi, a resident of Khenj district near of the epicenter.
“Everyone was horrified and scared,” Talabi told AFP, saying he feared “landslides and avalanches” may follow.
Power was briefly cut in parts of the capital, while east of Kabul an AFP journalist in Nangarhar province also felt it.
Earthquakes are common in Afghanistan, particularly along the Hindu Kush mountain range, near where the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates meet.
Haqmal Saad, spokesman for the Panjshir province police, described the quake as “very strong” and said the force was “gathering information on the ground.”
Mohibullah Jahid, head of Panjshir Natural Disaster Management agency, told AFP he was in touch with several officials in the area.
The district governor had told him there were reports of “minor damage, such as cracks in the walls, but we have not received anything serious, such as the collapse of houses or anything similar,” Jahid said.
Residents in Bamiyan and Wardak provinces, west of Kabul, told AFP they also felt the earthquake.
In Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, rescue service official Bilal Ahmad Faizi said the quake was felt in border areas.
In August last year, a shallow 6.0-magnitude quake in the country’s east wiped out mountainside villages and killed more than 2,200 people.
Weeks later, a 6.3-magnitude quake in northern Afghanistan killed at least 27 people.
Large tremors in western Herat, near the Iranian border, in 2023, and in Nangarhar province in 2022, killed hundreds and destroyed thousands of homes.
Many homes in the predominantly rural country, which has been devastated by decades of war, are shoddily built.
Poor communication networks and infrastructure in mountainous Afghanistan have hampered disaster responses in the past, preventing authorities from reaching far-flung villages for hours or even days before they could assess the extent of the damage.
