Brazil court orders Flávio Bolsonaro to surrender passports after election defeat

Brazilian Senator Flávio Bolsonaro has been barred from leaving the country and ordered to surrender his passports, including his diplomatic passport, shortly after losing the presidential election to leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The order was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. The Guardian reported that the ruling came only hours after the election result and was linked in the court’s brief decision to a federal police investigation into a suspected money-laundering scheme.

Police suspect that about £680m was laundered through arrangements involving betting companies. The order also prevents Bolsonaro from contacting Willer Tomaz, a lawyer and associate linked to those companies. Bolsonaro announced the measure in a video posted on social media before Brazilian media had reported the judge’s decision.

He said police arrived after he visited his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is under house arrest in Brasília. He said officers served him with an order to surrender his passports and prohibited him from leaving Brazil. The senator said the action was based on an interview given by his brother, Eduardo Bolsonaro, the previous Friday.

Eduardo, who is in self-imposed exile in the United States, had said Flávio should leave Brazil if he lost the election. Flávio said he had never made such a statement himself. Flávio Bolsonaro’s party has acknowledged the election result but said questions about it still needed to be clarified through a balanced and democratic political debate.

Like his father four years earlier, Flávio has not conceded defeat to Lula, according to The Guardian. The senator had claimed that a two-hour extension of voting damaged the election. The extension was intended to help voters who could not access mandatory free public transport, although Bolsonaro’s own campaign had also argued for an extension.

Folha de S.Paulo reported that allies and lawyers persuaded him that a legal challenge based on the issue was weak. Bolsonaro has not publicly withdrawn his demand to annul the election. In the same video, he said he would file another case seeking to disqualify Lula’s ticket over alleged abuse of economic power.

His legal team had brought similar cases during the campaign. When his Senate term ends early next year, Bolsonaro will leave public office for the first time in 24 years and lose the special jurisdiction associated with officeholders. He is also being investigated over an alleged £20m request made to a disgraced banker for a biopic about his father.

The reports do not indicate how either investigation will develop or whether the passport order will be challenged.