BRASILIA, Brazil -- A Brazilian congressional panel is set to recommend mass homicide charges against President Jair Bolsonaro, asserting that he intentionally let the coronavirus rip through the country and kill hundreds of thousands in a failed bid to achieve herd immunity and revive Latin America's largest economy.
A report from a congressional investigation, excerpts from which were viewed by The New York Times ahead of its scheduled release this week, also recommends criminal charges against 69 other people, including three of Bolsonaro's sons and numerous current and former government officials.
The accusations appear in a nearly 1,200-page report that blames Bolsonaro's policies for the deaths of more than 300,000 Brazilians, half of the nation's coronavirus death toll, and urges the Brazilian authorities to imprison the president, according to the excerpts from the report and interviews with two of the committee's senators.
"Many of these deaths were preventable," Renan Calheiros, the centrist Brazilian senator who was the lead author of the report, said in an interview in his office late Monday. "I am personally convinced that he is responsible for escalating the slaughter."
It is unclear whether the report will lead to criminal charges. But it may prove a major escalation in the political challenges confronting Bolsonaro, who took office in 2019, faces reelection next year and is suffering falling popularity.
From the outset of the pandemic, Bolsonaro has gone out of his way to minimize the threat of the virus. As countries around the world locked down and his own people began filling hospitals, he encouraged mass gatherings and discouraged masks.
Those actions, the report argued, amounted to mass homicide.
Bolsonaro's office did not respond to requests for comment, but the president has criticized the Senate's investigation into his handling of the pandemic as politically motivated. "Did you know that I was indicted for homicide today?" he asked supporters after the first details leaked out. He later called Calheiros "dirty."
The report's findings culminate a six-month investigation by a special covid-19 Senate committee that held more than 50 hearings. They featured testimony about bribery schemes and disinformation operations. One lawmaker wore a bulletproof vest to testify that some vaccine purchases included kickbacks.
Written by a small group of senators after a wide-ranging investigation, the report also accuses Bolsonaro of "genocide" against Indigenous groups in the Amazon, where the virus decimated populations for months after hospitals there ran out of oxygen. Those allegations are unlikely to gain traction with Brazilian prosecutors, according to legal experts, and seem certain to further divide an already fractured nation.
The report found that the president had pushed unproven drugs like hydroxychloroquine well after they had been shown to be ineffective for treating covid-19, and that his administration caused a monthslong delay in the distribution of vaccines in Brazil by ignoring more than 100 emails from Pfizer. Instead, his government opted to overpay for an unapproved vaccine from India, the report said, a deal that was later canceled over suspicions of graft.
Calheiros defended the committee's plans to recommend charges of homicide and "Indigenous genocide" against Bolsonaro, saying they were accurate under a technical reading of Brazilian law. He framed the homicide charge as murder "by omission" -- meaning that Bolsonaro allowed deaths he was responsible for preventing.
The committee was scheduled to release the report today and then vote on it in a week. The group of seven opposition senators generally agree on the report, Calheiros said, suggesting that it would be approved.
One of the four senators on the committee who support the president is his son, Flavio Bolsonaro. The report that he will vote on next week will recommend criminal charges against him, too.
In addition to the homicide and genocide charges, the report recommends nine additional charges against Jair Bolsonaro, including forging documents and "crimes against humanity."
If the report is approved, Brazil's attorney general will have 30 days to decide whether to pursue criminal charges against Bolsonaro and the others named in the report. Brazil's lower house in Congress would also have to approve charges against Bolsonaro. De Souza said that outcome was unlikely: Bolsonaro appointed the attorney general, who remains his supporter, and his supporters control the lower house.
Calheiros said that if the attorney general did not pursue charges against the president, the Senate committee would seek other potential legal avenues, including in Brazil's Supreme Court and the International Criminal Court in The Hague.