Brazil’s congressional panel released a draft report on Tuesday recommending homicide charges against Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for his mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to the death of over 600,000 citizens.

The nearly 1,200-page report accused Bolsonaro and 69 other government officials of being responsible for the “deliberate and conscious” delay in releasing COVID vaccines which contributed to the “stratospheric” coronavirus death toll that devastated Latin America’s largest economy.

“The mathematics of the situation was clear: the more infections, the more deaths. Without vaccines mortality would have been stratospheric, as it turned out to be,” the report said. “We will never forget.”

Brazil is one of the countries worst affected by COVID, ranking second with the highest coronavirus mortality rate, according to Johns Hopkins data.

The draft report, which was pre-released to the New York Times, accuses Brazil’s far-right leader of forging documents, “crimes against humanity,” as well as other crimes.

He has also repeatedly promoted unproven drugs such as chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to cure COVID-19 while firmly standing against the vaccine. In March 2020, Bolsonaro said that Brazilians "never catch anything." He added that, "You see some bloke jumping into the sewage. He gets out, has a dive, right? And nothing happens to him."

The report offered a scathing review of Bolsonaro and his government.

“In spite of all the vaccines that were on offer, the federal government opted not to buy them, a decision that went against all of the scientific studies which demonstrated their safety and effectiveness, and against the advice of all of the epidemiologists who declared on a daily basis that only vaccines would save lives,” the report said.

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. If charged, Bolsonaro will be suspended from office for 180 days, while the Supreme Court decides the case, the Times noted.

COVID cases in Brazil have reduced significantly in the past few months as more people get vaccinated. Currently, 74% of the population has at least one dose of the vaccine, while 50% are fully vaccinated.

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