SAO PAULO, March 26, (AP): Brazil's Federal Police on Monday launched an investigation into former president Jair Bolsonaro's two-night stay last month at the Hungarian embassy in Brasilia, amid widespread speculation from his opponents that he may have been attempting to evade arrest.
A Federal Police source with knowledge of the investigation confirmed to The Associated Press that it was undertaken in response to a report from The New York Times, which featured security camera video of the Hungarian ambassador welcoming Bolsonaro on Feb. 12 and footage of Bolsonaro from the rest of his stay. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, one of the leaders of a global far-right movement, is a key international ally of his.
The visit took place just days after Federal Police seized Bolsonaro’s Brazilian and Italian passports and raided the homes of his top aides as part of a probe into whether they plotted to ignore 2022 election results and stage an uprising to keep the defeated leader in power.
Bolsonaro has denied wrongdoing regarding this investigation, and multiple others targeting him.
Were the Federal Police to obtain an arrest warrant for the former president, officers would not have jurisdiction to enter the Hungarian embassy due to diplomatic conventions restricting access.
Bolsonaro’s lawyers said in a statement on Monday that there was nothing amiss about his embassy stay.
"In the days he was at the Hungarian embassy, by invitation, the former Brazilian president spoke to countless authorities from the friendly country for updates on the political scenarios of both nations,” his lawyers said in the statement. "Any other interpretations ... constitute an evidently fictional work, with no connection to the reality of the facts.”
Speaking at his party's headquarters in Sao Paulo, Bolsonaro told supporters he gets many calls from Orbán to discuss politics.