Brazil’s Supreme Court has turned down a request by former president Jair Bolsonaro to return his passport, so that he could travel to Israel.
Bolsonaro’s lawyers said that Netanyahu had invited Bolsonaro for an event in May. His passport was seized in February amid a probe into his alleged attempted coup that came after he lost the 2022 election to his rival and successor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The apex court said that it was “absolutely premature” to return the passport. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes wrote in his decision, which was in line with a recommendation from the prosecutor general’s office cited by Moraes.
The request was placed before the court on the same day New York Times carried a story that showed Bolsonaro spending two nights last month at the Hungarian Embassy in Brasilia fearing arrests.
In his petition to the Supreme Court for authorisation to travel to Israel from May 12 to 18, Bolsonaro’s lawyers had said the proposed trip wouldn’t jeopardise the ongoing legal processes he faces, as he had scheduled appointments after the planned date of return.
The request didn’t specify which event Bolsonaro had hoped to attend, but the proposed period coincided with Israel’s Independence Day
While far-right Bolsonaro remains an ally of Netanyahu, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had been declared “persona non grata” by the Israeli government.
The fallout between Israel and the Brazilian leader intensified in February after Lula compared Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, in retaliation for the Hamas terror attacks of October 7 in which some 1,200 people were killed, to the Holocaust.
Lula had accused Israel of “genocide” in Gaza and claimed its military campaign was akin to Adolf Hitler’s extermination of an estimated 6 million Jews during World War II. Over 32,000 people have been killed, mostly women and children in the Israeli offensive in Gaza.
With inputs from AP
