Brazil’s top court denies Bolsonaro’s request for passport return to travel to Israel

Brazil’s Supreme Court denies a request by former president Jair Bolsonaro’s lawyers that his passport be returned to him so that he can travel to Israel, according to an official document.

Bolsonaro’s lawyers said in a statement on Thursday that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had invited Bolsonaro to an event in May, and requested the Supreme Court to restore his passport.

“It is absolutely premature to remove the restriction imposed on the investigated person,” Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes writes in his decision, which is in line with a recommendation from the prosecutor general’s office cited by Moraes.

Bolsonaro’s passport was taken, precisely, to prevent him from leaving the country, given “the danger to the development of criminal investigations and the possible application of criminal law,” the prosecutor general’s office said earlier in its opinion.

Federal Police seized Bolsonaro’s passport in February during a raid related to an investigation into whether he and top aides plotted to ignore the 2022 election results and stage an uprising to keep the defeated leader in power. Bolsonaro lost the election to his rival and successor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.