Brazil’s president calls for security forces and citizens who shoot alleged offenders to be shielded from prosecution

Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has said he hopes criminals will “die in the streets like cockroaches” as a result of hard-line legislation he is pushing to shield security forces and citizens who shoot alleged offenders from prosecution.

In an interview broadcast on Monday, Bolsonaro said he hoped Congress would approve his controversial plans to expand the so-called excludente de ilicitude – an article in Brazil’s criminal code that makes some normally illegal acts permissible.

Sérgio Moro became a national hero for his role as a judge in the sweeping graft scandal Operation Car Wash

Brazil’s justice minister, Sérgio Moro, has been granted a leave of absence following a slew of damaging leaks that have cast serious doubts over his impartiality as a judge in a sweeping graft scandal.

Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s far-right president, approved the break, from 15-19 July, for Moro to “deal with personal matters”, according to an official government document published on Monday.

In new disclosures, conservative magazine Veja says Sergio Moro, who led Operation Car Wash, guilty of serious ‘irregularities’

Brazil’s justice minister Sérgio Moro is facing renewed pressure to resign after the country’s leading conservative magazine waded into a snowballing scandal over his role in a mammoth anti-corruption investigation that helped reshape South America’s political landscape.

Related: Outcry after reports Brazil plans to investigate Glenn Greenwald

Former ambassadors say far-right leader has cuddled up to rightwing nationalists, irked China, infuriated Middle Eastern partners, and jettisoned its position as climate crisis leader

It has long been considered one of the jewels of Latin American statecraft; a shrewd, dependable and highly trained foreign service that helped make Brazil a global climate leader and soft power heavyweight.

But six months into the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro, even veteran diplomats struggle to mask their horror at the wrecking ball being taken to the country’s nearly two century-old foreign office, known as Itamaraty after the Rio palace where it was once housed.