Court Allows Probe of Brazil's Bolsonaro

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Demonstrations against President Jair Bolsonaro spread across Brazil on Saturday, a day after a Supreme Court justice approved an investigation into Bolsonaro in response to claims of potential corruption regarding a vaccine deal. 

On Friday, Supreme Court Justice Rosa Weber said the investigation into the case is backed by a recent testimony from a Senate committee investigating how the government handles the pandemic.

At the same time, demonstrations took place across Brazil to demand the dismissal of Bolsonaro after providing evidence of violations related to the deal, with the participation of thousands in at least 13 states, according to local media.

A member of the Brazilian Senate, who is leading an investigation into the government's management of the Coronavirus crisis, said on May 22, 2020, that President Jair Bolsonaro never planned to buy vaccines against the Coronavirus and preferred the people gain immunity.

Reuters reported, quoting Senator Renan Caleros, that it was too early to conclude that Bolsonaro committed a criminal offense while managing the crisis and that further investigations were required.

In June of last year, the local health authorities in Brazil accused President Jair Bolsonaro's government of "hiding the number of deaths" caused by the Coronavirus (Covid-19), after an official in the Ministry of Health questioned the official toll.

The National Council of Health Ministers, which includes all local authorities, stressed that "the authoritarian, unsympathetic and immoral attempt to hide the deaths of Covid-19, will not prosper."

And the former Minister of Health in Bolsonaro's government, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, was dismissed in April after expressing his objection to the federal government's policy saying, "the state is more harmful than the virus.”