On Feb. 8, Brazil’s federal police confiscated former President Jair Bolsonaro’s passport and arrested a pair of his former aides on accusations that they had plotted a coup after Mr. Bolsonaro lost the 2022 presidential election.
Four days later, Mr. Bolsonaro was at the entrance to the Hungarian Embassy in Brazil, waiting to be let in, according to the embassy’s security-camera footage, which was obtained by The New York Times.
The former president appeared to stay at the embassy for the next two days, the footage showed, accompanied by two security guards and waited on by the Hungarian ambassador and staff members. Mr. Bolsonaro, a target of various criminal investigations, cannot be arrested at a foreign embassy that welcomes him, because they are legally off-limits to domestic authorities.
The stay at the embassy suggests that the former president was seeking to leverage his friendship with a fellow far-right leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, into an attempt to evade the Brazilian justice system as he faces criminal investigations at home.
The Times analyzed three days’ worth of footage from four cameras in the Hungarian Embassy showing that Mr. Bolsonaro arrived late on Monday, Feb. 12, and left the afternoon of Wednesday, Feb. 14. In between, he mostly stayed out of sight.
The Times verified the footage by matching it with images of the embassy, including satellite imagery that showed the car in which Mr. Bolsonaro arrived parked in the driveway on Feb. 13.
Parked car seen in Feb. 13 satellite image
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Entrance
gate
Brazil
Brasília
Bolsonaro’s
parked car
Hungarian
Embassy
Guest
apartments
50 feet
Entrance
gate
Brazil
Brasília
Bolsonaro’s
parked car
Hungarian
Embassy
Guest
apartments
75 feet
Image captured by Pléiades Neo satellite network.
By Leanne Abraham; image by Airbus DS
