By Lisaandra Paraguassu and Ricardo Brito
BRASÍLIA (Reuters) – Covid’s Senate CPI rapporteur, Renan Calheiros (MDB-AL), released a final report to pairs proposing the indictment of 71 people, including President Jair Bolsonaro, his three parliamentary sons and six ministers and former government ministers, in addition to two companies.
The document obtained by Reuters has 1,178 pages and was distributed by Renan to the commission’s senators. A preliminary version of the text was leaked in recent days and generated a reaction from CPI lawmakers for not having been discussed previously.
The reading of the rapporteur’s opinion would be done on Tuesday, but it was postponed to Wednesday due to the leak. A meeting of senators is being convened for this evening to iron out the differences. The vote on the report should take place next week, on the 26th.
In the gigantic document, Bolsonaro is appointed as the “mainly responsible for the government’s mistakes committed during the Covid-19 pandemic”, citing, among other points, his insistence on the adoption and propagation of the use of treatment with drugs without proven efficacy to the detriment of vaccination and the government’s initial resistance to purchasing vaccines.
“In conclusion, by adopting and insisting on early treatment as practically the only government policy to fight the pandemic, Jair Bolsonaro strongly collaborated for the spread of Covid-19 in Brazilian territory and, thus, proved to be the main responsible for the errors committed by the federal government during the pandemic”, says the document.
“In fact, the insistence on early treatment at the expense of vaccination points to the President of the Republic as the main responsible for the government errors committed during the Covid-19 pandemic, since he was correctly informed and guided by the Ministry of Health, and even thus, he acted against the technical orientation, ignoring any warning that contradicted his ideas”, reinforces the text, in another excerpt.
The president is the target of 13 indictment suggestions proposed by the rapporteur for the following crimes: aggravated homicide, epidemic, infraction of preventive sanitary measure, quackery, incitement to crime, forgery of private document, irregular use of public funds, malfeasance, genocide of indigenous people, crime against humanity, violation of social rights, incompatibility with dignity, honor and decorum of office and crime of responsibility.
One of the points about Bolsonaro that has been questioned by senators is the genocide of indigenous people. The chairman of the commission, Omar Aziz (PSD), who is from Amazonas, has already publicly disagreed with this framework and has warned of the risk that a possible typification error could discredit all the work of the CPI.
When contacted, the Secretary of Communication of the Presidency (Secom) did not respond to a request for comment on Bolsonaro. This Tuesday, the president, in conversation with supporters, mocked the opinion. “For me it doesn’t take anything, I’m ignoring it. Will I worry about the CPI, for example? Joke. There is an accusation by Renan, suspicion of corruption by Renan”.
The senator’s text also recommends the indictment for a series of crimes three of the president’s sons: senator Flávio Bolsonaro (Patriota-RJ), federal deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro (PSL-RJ), and Rio de Janeiro councilman Carlos Bolsonaro (Patriota-RJ) ). The trio is appointed as the “command nucleus”, the “head of the organization”, encouraging in “numerous posts” the “non-compliance with sanitary measures to contain the pandemic”.
The rapporteur proposed to indict them for the offense of incitement to crime — in the case of Flávio Bolsonaro, he can also be held responsible for administrative law and administrative improbity. The inclusion of Flávio is another controversial point.
In a statement, Flávio Bolsonaro said that the report is a “hallucination, it does not hold up and is a disrespect for the nearly 600,000 victims of Covid who expected something useful from the CPI.”
The defense of Carlos Bolsonaro stated in a note that if, in fact, this request for indictment occurs, “it is totally unfounded in the facts found in the CPI and in the numerous narratives created that did not hold up over time”, adding that the councilor “has not any relation to the measures adopted in the fight against the pandemic by the federal government” and the inclusion of his name is “another attempt to attack the image of the president’s family”.
Eduardo Bolsonaro’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
MINISTERS AND FORMER MINISTERS
Renan’s opinion also calls for the indictment of Marcelo Queiroga and Eduardo Pazuello, the current and former Health Minister respectively; Defense Minister Walter Braga Netto, coordinator of the pandemic crisis committee at the time he was chief of the Casa Civil; and the ministers of Labour, Onyx Lorenzoni, and the Comptroller General of the Union, Wagner Rosário.
Also on the list were former Chancellor Ernesto Araújo, the government leader in the Chamber, Ricardo Barros (PP-PR), part of the Health summit, and the president of Funai, Marcelo Xavier, as well as Élcio Franco, former executive secretary of Saúde, and Roberto Dias, former secretary of logistics, fired when the scandal of the attempt to purchase the Indian vaccine Covaxin came to light.
The government leader told Reuters that all people interviewed at the CPI exempted him. “No exception. They have no materiality elements. I will sue him for abuse of authority and slanderous denunciation,” said Barros.
The other authorities mentioned did not immediately respond to requests for comment through their respective offices.
The companies VTCLog and Need Medicines are also targets of indictment requests due to suspected irregularities in purchases at the Ministry of Health, including a request to hold executives from both. Sought, companies did not respond immediately.
Renan suggested slicing up the results of the CPI investigations by various bodies. In the case of Bolsonaro and Onyx, it is requested the deepening of the investigations and possible accountability to the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR), the Federal Police and the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Other authorities with jurisdiction before the STF, such as ministers and parliamentarians, the same measure for PGR and PF. The others mentioned in the report should be investigated by the Federal and State Public Prosecutors.
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