Bolsonaro Flees Brazil, Heads for US   10/28 06:08

   

   SAO PAULO (AP) -- Flvio Bolsonaro, the defeated Brazilian presidential 
candidate, fled his country to Argentina and then Ecuador alongside his wife 
and two daughters, Argentina's migration authority said on Wednesday. The 
45-year-old senator and his family were granted United States visas the day 
before by the Trump administration.

   The move is almost certain to cause a big diplomatic rift between Brazil's 
newly reelected President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva and his Argentine 
counterpart Javier Milei, who traveled to Brazil to take part in Bolsonaro's 
campaign.

   Bolsonaro is under investigation by Brazil's Supreme Court for alleged 
corruption, money laundering and tax evasion in two cases. The court had 
ordered Bolsonaro to hand over his regular and diplomatic passports by noon 
Tuesday. It remained unclear whether he had complied, but allies said late 
Tuesday he also has an Italian passport.

   Argentina's migration authority said on X that Bolsonaro, his wife Fernanda 
Antunes Figueira Bolsonaro, and his daughters Carolina Figueira Bolsonaro and 
Luiza Figueira Bolsonaro crossed into the country at 10:50 p.m. It added they 
entered via the Tancredo Neves International Bridge, a primary border 
checkpoint linking Brazil to Argentina's northeastern province of Misiones.

   "Those who did so possessed valid travel documentation and faced no legal 
impediments to entering the country," the Argentine migration authority said.

   The authority said that at 11:30 p.m. local time, shortly after clearing 
immigration control, the four boarded a private charter flight operated by 
aviation company Baires Fly S.A. According to the filed flight plan, the 
aircraft departed for Guayaquil, Ecuador.

   Flight tracking website FlightRadar24 showed that a plane fitting the 
description of Bolsonaro's landed in Guayaquil at about 4 a.m. local time, 
before taking off minutes later for Miami's Opa Locka executive airport. It was 
not clear whether the defeated candidate was on board.

   Lula, who turned 81 on Tuesday, told several dozen supporters outside the 
presidential residence in Brasilia that he did not have precise information 
about Bolsonaro's whereabouts, but said he had left Brazil.

   "I regret that he left Brazil, because he could have stayed here and proven 
that the accusations are not true," Lula said. "This act of leaving Brazil is 
shameful."

   Representatives of Brazil's government and Bolsonaro did not immediately 
respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

   U.S. President Donald Trump said early Wednesday that he would approve of 
Bolsonaro coming to the U.S., calling him and his family "fine people."

   "The election was really strange, and I thought it was terrible," Trump told 
reporters at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, after returning from campaigning in 
Texas on Tuesday. He did not elaborate but stressed that he didn't endorse the 
election results.

   Leaders all over the world and the Organization of American States (OAS) 
endorsed the result and congratulated Lula, who was reelected by a margin of 
about 4.4 million votes in the second and final round.

   Argentinian lawmaker Marcela Pagano said on X she filed a suit at a federal 
court in the city of Puerto Iguazu late Tuesday to request an investigation 
into her country's government for people smuggling and abuse of authority 
regarding Bolsonaro.

   "Our government says 'he never entered' Argentina. If he did, someone let 
him in. If they wanted to take him out through a federal airport, someone 
looked to the other side," Pagano said. "Argentina's border is not a VIP runway 
for anyone. Sovereignty is neither negotiated nor lent."

   On Tuesday, Milei's administration spokesman Adrin Ravier said "there is no 
asylum request (from Bolsonaro) and there is nothing more to add."

   The defeated candidate was served with a Supreme Court order to surrender 
his Brazilian passports Monday. In a video, he said he received it outside the 
home where his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, is serving a 27-year 
sentence under house arrest for attempting a coup following his 2022 election 
loss to Lula.

   After that defeat, Jair Bolsonaro fled Brazil for Florida. He returned three 
months later.

   Flvio Bolsonaro said on Monday in a video that he was attempting to 
organize opposition among his congressional colleagues to the election results. 
His eight-year term as a senator expires Jan. 31, 2027, which will also cause 
him to lose special jurisdiction at the country's Supreme Court.

   Brazil's Supreme Court is investigating Bolsonaro for allegedly using a 
sports betting company to launder fraudulent deductions from government 
pensions paid to senior citizens. In a separate case, he is accused of 
accepting millions of dollars from a disgraced banker.