“We know that we are not to blame for absolutely anything. We know that we did the right thing from the beginning,” Bolsonaro added.
The Commission Parliamentary from Investigation (CPI), which for six months scrutinized the government’s actions during the pandemic, does not have the power to make formal complaints, but its report will be sent to different bodies that can continue investigations and formulate charges, such as the Attorney General’s Office, the Court of Accounts or an international court.
After six months of hearings, with moving testimonies and shocking revelations – such as the use of patients as “human guinea pigs” to test ineffective drugs against Covid-19 – the ICC rapporteur, Senator Renan gutters, read the summary of the 1,200-page report of the investigations.
On Tuesday night, Calheiros announced that Bolsonaro would be held responsible for nine charges instead of the eleven initially planned, including crime against humanity, epidemic, charlatanism and prevarication.
The charges of “homicide” and “genocide of indigenous populations” were dropped at the last minute due to disagreements within the commission.
Among other findings, the ICC held that the government deliberately delayed the purchase of vaccines and, advised by a parallel cabinet that contradicted scientific evidence, did not take the necessary measures to contain the circulation of the coronavirus, betting instead on “herd immunity.”
Dozens of people were also charged in the report, probably including several ministers, three of Bolsonaro’s children and close associates of the president.
From the beginning of the health emergency, the ultraconservative minimized the pandemic, denied the use of chinstraps, social isolation measures and defended ineffective drugs, such as hydroxychloroquine.
More than a year after contracting the virus, the president assures that he will not be vaccinated.
“This report already seems like a sentence. Bolsonaro’s attitude can be criticized, but he cannot be penalized,” complained Senator Fernando Bezerra, an ally of the far-right president.
The 11-member commission will put the report to a vote next Tuesday.
Although the final ICC report could have serious political and judicial consequences, analysts agree that its short-term impact will be “symbolic”, because Bolsonaro still has enough support in Congress to avoid a impeachment and they see it unlikely that the attorney general will decide to impute it.
Bolsonaro’s popularity is at its lowest level since he assumed the presidency of Brazil, and Polls for 2022 show him behind leftist former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
After months of questioning ministers, government officials, hospital directors and businessmen, the ICC ended its sessions this week in a more humane tone by hearing from relatives of coronavirus victims.
“We deserve an apology from the highest authority in the country. It is not a question of politics, we are talking about lives,” said taxi driver Márcio Silva, who lost his 25-year-old son.
Initially, the commission delved into responsibilities for dead patients in Manaos due to lack of oxygen, but then he entered into irregularities such as the government’s delay in buying vaccines, or the existence of a “parallel cabinet” of doctors and businessmen defending drugs without proven efficacy that advised the president.
Along the way, new plots were identified, including alleged irregularities in the purchase – not made – of the Indian vaccine Covaxin, which earned Bolsonaro a judicial investigation for “prevarication” for not having reported the case, of which he was theoretically aware, to the Federal Police.
Or the connections between the government and private health operators in the promotion of ineffective drugs for the “early treatment” of the coronavirus.
One of them is Prevent Senior, a health operator for the elderly designated to apply experimental treatments without the consent of patients and to make up the number of deaths from coronavirus, among others. The São Paulo Prosecutor’s Office is investigating this case, which has impacted Brazil.
“The ICC report is to ask for the punishment of those truly responsible for this massacre that occurred in Brazil. There are many and we cannot stop punishing them,” Omar Aziz, president of the commission, summarized on Tuesday.
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