A judge of the Supreme Court of Justice of Brazil has given this Monday a period of 48 hours to former president Jair Bolsonaro to explain his two-day stay at the Hungarian embassy shortly after the Federal Police confiscated his passport.

The decision was made by magistrate Alexandre de Moraes, who is leading the investigations in the high court about the coup plot that tried to overthrow the Government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, The lawyer of the far-right leader has stated, quoted by local media.

The judge’s order comes after the newspaperor The New York Times would point out that Bolsonaro took refuge between February 12 and 14 in the Hungarian Embassy in Brasilia, four days after the Federal Police launched an operation against him and his closest circle for the coup attempt.

The images from the security cameras obtained by the newspaper show the former ruler (2019-2022) in the diplomatic offices in the company of two bodyguards, the Hungarian ambassador and diplomats from the European country. After the news came to light, Bolsonaro’s lawyers stated that the former Brazilian president He spent “two days staying” at the Hungarian embassyin Brasilia, as a guest and to talk about politics with authorities from that country, and they stressed that any other interpretation, such as asking for asylum, is “fiction.”

Call for inquiries

The situation led the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs will call the Hungarian ambassador this Monday for consultations, Miklós Halmai, to explain the former president’s stay in the embassy of that country. In the police operation on February 8 against those accused of having participated in a coup plot against Lula, several people of Bolsonaro’s utmost confidence were arrested, on whom he also imposed a series of precautionary measures, such as the confiscation of his passport.

Also, they prevented him from leaving the country and They prohibited him from having contact with other people investigated within the process about the plot that tried to annul the 2022 presidential elections, which the progressive Lula won, and keep Bolsonaro in power.

The former president is only listed as being investigated in this case, although his judicial future has been complicated after the revealing testimonies to the Police of Marco Antonio Freire Gomes and Carlos Baptista Júnior, former commanders of the Army and Aeronautics. They both declared who met several times with Bolsonaro and his closest advisors, and that they invited them to support their plan to carry out a coup, which included intervening in the Superior Electoral Court, decreeing a state of siege and even arresting judges, as well as the head of Congress.