Brazil revokes visa of US diplomat in Bolsonaro row / Photo: Evaristo SA - AFP/File
Brazil revokes visa of US diplomat in Bolsonaro row
Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Friday banned a US diplomat who wanted to visit jailed former far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro amid fears of US meddling in the run-up to elections this year.
Bolsonaro, sentenced for plotting a coup, was hospitalized in intensive care Friday after developing bronchopneumonia at the prison.
President Donald Trump has called the case against his far-right Latin American ally a "witch hunt."
Lawyers for Bolsonaro earlier this week asked the Supreme Court to allow Darren Beattie, the US State Department's new advisor on Brazil, to visit Bolsonaro in prison on March 18.
The Supreme Court initially agreed to the visit but later revoked the authorization after the Brazilian government cautioned against the meeting.
"I banned him from coming to Brazil," Lula said at an event in Rio de Janeiro on Friday.
A Brazilian diplomatic source told AFP that Beattie's visa was revoked Friday due to "lies about the purpose of the visit."
Lula said the US diplomat would not be allowed into Brazil until Washington lifted a visa ban on Brazilian Health Minister Alexandre Padilha.
Padilha was sanctioned late last year over his role in a program to employ Cuban doctors in Brazil.
- Bid to steal election -
Bolsonaro, 70, is serving a 27-year sentence over his failed bid to remain in power after his defeat by Lula in 2022.
His trial last year sparked the ire of the Trump administration, which imposed high tariffs on a range of Brazilian goods as punishment.
Washington scaled back the tariffs after a meeting between Lula and Trump in October.
But Brazil remains wary of Trump's campaign to sway events in Latin America, as exemplified by his overthrow of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and attempts to influence elections from Argentina to Honduras.
Trump was embroiled in his own attempt to overturn an election when he refused to accept defeat to Joe Biden in 2020, culminating with a mob of supporters attacking the US Congress building in Washington.
- 'Undue interference' -
Brazil's foreign ministry said Beattie's visa had been granted exclusively to allow him to attend a forum on critical minerals and to participate in meetings with Brazilian government officials.
It added that the visit of a foreign public official to a former president during an election year "could constitute undue interference" in Brazil's internal affairs, according to court documents.
Bolsonaro remains a figurehead of the Brazilian right, despite his incarceration and debilitated physical state.
The 70-year-old had "high fever, a drop in oxygen saturation, sweating and chills," according to a statement from DF Star Hospital in Brasilia.
He is receiving intravenous antibiotics to treat "bilateral bacterial bronchopneumonia," the statement said.
Bolsonaro has suffered from recurring health issues since being stabbed in the abdomen during a campaign event in 2018.
The Supreme Court has until now denied requests that he be allowed to serve his sentence under house arrest.
"They are playing with my father's life," his senator son Flavio Bolsonaro, who is running for president in October's elections against Lula, said Friday.
A.Graziadei--PV
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