The Brazilian government has summoned the Hungarian ambassador and sought a reply on why former president Jair Bolsonaro spent two nights “hiding” at Hungary’s embassy in Brasília last month when police arrested some of his closest allies.
The security footage obtained by the New York Times showed that the rightwing populist took shelter in the embassy after two of this closest allies were arrested. The newspaper said the he was trying to “leverage his friendship with a fellow far-right leader, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.”
The footage showed that the former president, accompanied by two security guards, stayed at the embassy. Bolsonaro, a target of various criminal investigations, cannot be arrested at a foreign embassy that welcomes him, because they are legally off-limits to domestic authorities.
Bolsonaro confirmed the report and in an interview with Brazilian website Metrópoles said: “I won’t deny that I was in the embassy … I won’t say where else I’ve been. I have a circle of friends with some heads of state around the world. They are worried. I talk to them about matters in our country’s interest. Full stop. The rest is speculation,” he was quoted as saying.
Bolsonaro did not make clear why he had decided to visit the embassy. Bolsonaro “was hosted for two days at the Hungarian embassy in Brazil to spend time with authorities from this friendly country,” his lawyers said.
Days before the mid-February embassy visit, Orban called Bolsonaro an “honest patriot” on social media and urged him to keep up the fight.
Bolsonaro lost power in 2022 after being beaten by leftist rival Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in presidential elections. He is facing a series of charges of faking Covid vaccination records, siphoning off expensive foreign gifts and, plotting to topple the government of his successor.
On February 8, Bolsonaro surrendered his passport as part of the federal police investigation into the alleged attempted coup.
With inputs from AP
