Lula meets Saudi prince who offered millions in jewelry that made life difficult for Jair Bolsonaro

Brazilian President Lula da Silva, who attended the G20 summit in India, met this Sunday in New Delhi, the capital of India, with the Crown Prince and de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman. The meeting was one of the few parallel events Lula agreed to take part in, and drew criticism because bin Salman was accused of systematic violations of human rights, which the Brazilian so publicly defended, and because the Saudi ruler had a very close relationship with former President Jair Bolsonaro .

Throughout his term, Bolsonaro, so averse to diplomacy, paid great attention to relations with distant Saudi Arabia, met several times with Mohammed bin Salman, always in an atmosphere of great cordiality, and during this four-year period special envoys of the former Brazilian ruler traveled to Asia country at least 150 times. To this day, we do not know what to do, since the commercial and political relations between the two countries were and remain absolutely insignificant compared to those that Brazil has with other countries that Bolsonaro did not even care about.

To crown this inexplicable attraction, Bin Salman several times presented Jair Bolsonaro and his wife Michelle Bolsonaro with very valuable gifts, unusual in international diplomacy, namely several sets of watches, rings, necklaces and earrings made of solid gold with stones. precious resources that lie at the heart of one of the cases pending in Brazilian justice against the former president, and which will most likely lead to his being sent to prison. In addition to the fact that Jair Bolsonaro’s advisers tried to enter Brazil with some of these gifts worth millions of euros, illegally hidden in backpacks containing personal clothing and without declaring them, those that the then president admitted to having received and which should have been handed over to the Brazilian state . historical heritage, were also illegally taken by him to the United States on the last day of his presidential term and sold in this country, according to the federal police, for the unlawful personal enrichment of the former head of state.

Despite all this, Lula had long wanted to meet bin Salman, but did not do so earlier on the advice of advisers who felt that a “chance” meeting on the sidelines of an international event would cause less stress. At the meeting this Sunday, Lula said that Brazil is open to more investment from Saudi Arabia and called on the prince to send Saudi delegations to several Brazilian states to see what projects under the PAC, the Growth Acceleration Program launched by Lula a few weeks ago, will be successful. Arab investments could be included, especially in the areas of infrastructure and technology.