Brazil revokes visa of US diplomat who sought to visit Bolsonaro in prison

SAO PAULO — Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Friday revoked the visa of a U.S diplomat who sought to visit a high-profile rival of the administration in prison, with Lula calling it a reciprocal measure after Brazilian officials had their visas revoked in the U.S. last year.

The decision came a day after U.S. State Department official Darren Beattie was denied a request to visit a prison to see former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro — a fierce rival of the current president. Lula tied his visa decision to a move in August by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to revoke visas of Brazilian officials said to have links to a Cuban program that sends doctors overseas.

On Thursday, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes denied a request by Beattie, a conservative author who became an under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs under the Trump administration, to visit the prison in Brasilia.

“That American fellow who said he had come here to visit Jair Bolsonaro was forbidden to do so,” Lula said, adding that Beattie would be blocked from Brazil until the visas for Brazil’s health minister and his family are reinstated.

Moraes, who sentenced Bolsonaro to 27 years in prison for leading a coup attempt in 2023, said in his ruling that Beattie had requested a visa to attend the Brazil–US Critical Minerals Forum in São Paulo on Wednesday. The ruling cited the Brazilian Foreign Ministry's view that Beattie’s planned visit to Bolsonaro would have represented “undue interference" in Brazil's politics.

The 80-year-old Lula is running for reelection later this year, with Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, one of the sons of the right-wing leader, expected to be his main opponent in his bid for a fourth term.

A Brazilian government official told The Associated Press on Friday that Beattie’s visa was revoked because of “the omission of information and lies about the purpose of the visit upon his visa request.” The official spoke under condition of anonymity for lack of authorization to discuss the matter publicly.

Neither the White House nor the U.S. embassy in Brasilia made comments on Lula’s decision or the Brazilian Supreme Court ruling about Beattie, a former speechwriter and political strategist who has been a critic of both Lula and de Moraes.

The Brazilian judge had agreed on Tuesday with a request by Bolsonaro lawyers for Beattie to visit the former president, but then changed his mind after he received new information from the Foreign Ministry.

In his ruling Thursday, de Moraes cited a dispatch from the ministry advising him that such a visit by a foreign official to a former president “in an electoral year might be undue interference in internal affairs of the Brazilian state.” The dispatch also told the justice that Beattie had not made any request with the ministry to visit Bolsonaro.

U.S. President Donald Trump has been a supporter of Bolsonaro, calling the case against him politically motivated, and had imposed tariffs on Brazil citing what he called the unfair treatment of the former president. But he has loosened the tariffs since then, including in November as part of his effort to lower consumer costs for Americans.

Lula has repeatedly suggested he wants to meet Trump in Washington to discuss tariffs, security cooperation and other topics, but no date has been set.