BRASILIA: Former President Jair Bolsonaro’s defense filed a request late on Thursday with Brazil’s highest court to urgently reconsider the decision to bar him from traveling to the United States to attend the US Inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.
Bolsonaro’s defense claimed that he has fully complied with and respected the precautionary measures imposed on him by the Supreme Court, and also rejected any possibility of him fleeing.
Earlier on Thursday, the Supreme Court rejected the former president’s request to have his passport returned, a decision seen by Reuters showed.
Bolsonaro, who has been barred from running for office until 2030 and faces criminal charges for allegedly plotting a coup after his 2022 election defeat, had his passport retained in February 2024 on the order of Brazil’s top court.
Right-wing Bolsonaro, who governed from 2019 to 2022 and has been called “Trump of the Tropics,” said last week on X that he had been invited to Trump’s inauguration and was seeking to obtain the return of his passport.
Legal experts had previously said that Brazil’s courts were unlikely to grant Bolsonaro’s request, as there were several ongoing investigations and cases against him that led to the retention of his passport to avoid a potential escape.
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In his Thursday decision, Justice Alexandre de Moraes wrote that Bolsonaro said in a November 2024 interview that he “considered the possibility of escaping and requesting political asylum to avoid possible criminal liability in Brazil.”
The former president, who denies any wrongdoing, in an interview with local news outlet UOL said that “those who see themselves as persecuted can go to an embassy.”
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