Brazil’s Court of Auditors ordered Bolsonaro to hand over jewelry Saudi Arabia donated during his tenure

The Plenary of the Court of Accounts of the Union (TCU) of Brazil unanimously approved this Wednesday that former President Jair Bolsonaro decides within a period not exceeding five days all the gifts you received between 2019 and 2022including one of the two jewelry boxes he received from the Saudi monarchy.

The TCU also ordered the Department of Special Revenues, better known as Receita Federal – a secretariat of the Ministry of Economy – to deliver the other jewelry box worth 16.5 million reais (approximately $3.12 million), which was seized in 2021. at Guarulhos airport, Sao Paulo.

TCU Chairman Bruno Dantas also ordered Bolsonaro to hand over the weapons package he received from Saudi authorities and recalled that Heads of state can only keep gifts for “very personal” use and of “little monetary value”, like “a team shirt, a perfume or a handkerchief”.

In the absence of these two requirements, Dantas intervened, the destination of these gifts is the collection of the Palacio do Planalto. In turn, he slipped the need now to carry out a stricter audit of the gifts that the president receives at the end of each mandate.

On Tuesday, former mines and energy minister Bento Alburquerque told federal police they always believed the jewelry Bolsonaro received from the Saudi royal family was a personal gift and not for the government. State.

From this official trip, they brought back vaultsone of which was full of jewelry that did not pass through customs, while the other, with a watch and other luxury items, was delivered to Bolsonaro in November 2022, a month before he left for the States States after losing the elections.

Brazil’s federal police have opened an investigation to clarify the “irregular entry” into the country of the adornment that the Saudi government gave in 2021 to then-president Jair Bolsonaro and his wife, Michelle Bolsonaro.

On Monday, Bolsonaro notified the federal police that he proposed to testify on this scandal involving Saudi jewelry, objects that he is ready to hand over to the justice of the country. According to a document sent to the crime commissioner of the Treasury of Sao Paulo, the former president put himself “at your complete disposal to comply with the decisions in the interest of the clarifying the real truththe newspaper reports Folha de S. Paulo.

Likewise, Bolsonaro at no time had “the intention of obtaining an advantage or disposing for himself of a heritage that could, in any event, be considered public”, according to his lawyers.

With information from EuropaPress

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