Senators want to revive dormant probe on Bolsonaro’s Covid response

Senators gather around a memorial in honor of Covid victims. Photo: Roque de Sá/SF

Brazil’s recently sworn-in prosecutor general, Paulo Gonet, had promised senators who confirmed his nomination that he would conduct investigations on Brazil’s Covid response during the Jair Bolsonaro years (2019-2022), recommended by a 2021 Senate investigation.

Months into Mr. Gonet’s two-year term, allies of the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration want to cash into his promise.

A group of government allies said on Monday they would request the Federal Prosecution Office to reopen investigations prompted by the 2021 Senate select committee that investigated the mismanagement of the Covid pandemic by the government of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro.

The Senate committee’s final report suggested that authorities investigate Mr. Bolsonaro and dozens of others for multiple crimes. The senators recommended that the former president be charged with crimes against humanity, homicide, forgery, and other crimes for bungling Brazil’s response to the pandemic and contributing to the country having the second-highest death toll in the world.

In February 2022, then-Prosecutor General Augusto Aras — picked by Mr. Bolsonaro — claimed the senators had not presented any evidence to support their report. Mr. Bolsonaro was not investigated during his presidency for the crimes identified by the Senate committee, and the investigations were, in fact, shelved.

Mr. Gonet, who President Lula picked last year, pledged in January to “reanalyze what can be achieved,” which included assessing “what was not done” at the time of the Senate inquiry. The Federal Prosecution Office did not immediately respond to an inquiry on what had been done since Mr. Gonet made his pledge.

After a seminar held on the fourth anniversary of the day the World Health Organization declared Covid a pandemic, Senator Randolfe Rodrigues, the government’s chief whip in Congress, told reporters that Mr. Aras neglected his duties to follow through with investigations.