Brazil police raid Bolsonaro's home
He lashed out at Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes, a Bolsonaro adversary who on Friday ordered the ex-president to wear an electronic ankle bracelet, not leave his home at night, or use social media. Moraes, one of the judges in Bolsonaro's trial for allegedly seeking to nullify leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's 2022 election victory, said the measures were necessary given the 'hostile acts' against Brazil by the accused and his son.
This came after Trump announced a 50 percent tariff on the South American powerhouse for what he said was a 'witch hunt' against his ally Bolsonaro. Moraes, said Eduardo Bolsonaro, 'has long abandoned any semblance of impartiality and now operates as a political gangster in robes, using the Supreme Court as his personal weapon.' The judge was 'trying to criminalize President Trump and the US government. Powerless against them, he chose to take my father hostage,' he added in a letter he signed as a 'Brazilian congressman in exile.'
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Friday Washington was revoking a US visa for Moraes for his 'political witch hunt against Jair Bolsonaro.'
Accusing him of creating a 'persecution and censorship complex,' Rubio also announced visa restrictions on other judges who side with Moraes, as well as their immediate family members. Bolsonaro, 70, described the Moraes order Friday as a 'supreme humiliation' and said the prohibitions were 'suffocating.' — AFP
It also prohibited him from approaching foreign embassies, and confined him to his home on weekdays between 7pm and 6am, and all day on weekends or public holidays.
'I never thought about leaving Brazil, I never thought about going to an embassy,' Bolsonaro insisted on emerging from the justice secretariat offices in Brasilia. He had been taken there after the raid, during which police seized cash. His defense team in a statement expressed 'surprise and indignation' at the new measures. – AFP
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