Security camera footage obtained by The New York Times shows that Brazil’s far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro spent two nights at the Hungarian embassy in Brasília, four days after surrendering his passport to the Federal Police, in what the North American paper described as an “apparent bid for asylum.”
Mr. Bolsonaro was forced to give up his passport as Federal Police investigations into an alleged coup plot arrested several of his close aides. The act of seizing one’s passport is a strategy typically used by the Brazilian feds before making an arrest, which led to much speculation at the start of February that the former president could be taken into custody imminently.
Mr. Bolsonaro was seen on security footage late on February 12, waiting to enter the Hungarian embassy in the Brazilian capital and then leaving two days later, a time period that coincides with Brazil’s Carnival holiday. The former president enjoys a close relationship with Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, and the two last met in December during the inauguration ceremony of Argentinian President Javier Milei.
While on embassy premises, Mr. Bolsonaro could not have been arrested by domestic authorities, which has sparked much speculation about whether the former president was “hiding” at the Hungarian embassy.
As the story broke today, Mr. Bolsonaro did not deny that he did in fact spend time in the Hungarian embassy. “I have a circle of friends with some heads of state around the world. They’re concerned. I talk to them about matters of interest for our country. Period. Everything else is speculation,” he told the news website Metrópoles.
The Federal Police have announced that it will investigate Mr. Bolsonaro’s stay at the Hungarian embassy. If the authorities understand it as an attempt to flee from justice, there could be grounds to keep the former president in custody.
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