BRASILIA, Brazil (LifeSiteNews) — Federal police raided the home of former President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday as part of an investigation to determine if false COVID-19 vaccination data had been inserted into the country’s public health database.
Two close Bolsonaro aides, Mauro Cid and Max Guilherme, were arrested in the same probe.
Federal police were in the process of serving 16 search and seizure warrants and six preventive arrest warrants in Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro as part of the operation, according to multiple reports.
READ: Brazil lawmakers to vote on bill backed by socialist president banning ‘fake news’ online
Police said in a statement that Bolsonaro was part of an effort to “sustain the discourse aimed at attacking the vaccine against COVID-19.”
“‘False data’ were allegedly added to the database between November 2021 and December 2022,” when Bolsonaro was president, according to a Reuters report.
“As a result, they were able to issue vaccine certificates and use them to circumvent restrictions imposed by public authorities in Brazil and the United States,” said the police statement.
In a June 2022 interview, Bolsonaro explained to then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson why he refused the jab, alternatives to the jab, and the “taste of dictatorship” which many leaders felt as a result of lockdowns.
“I always defended freedom. I did not force anyone to be vaccinated in Brazil,” the 67-year-old Catholic declared at CPAC earlier this year. “They keep saying, ‘science, science, science’ — what I say is ‘freedom, freedom, freedom.’”
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