The last years of Elisa Sousa were of losses. With the collapse of BES, she saw the money she had saved throughout her life wasted. It was 130 thousand euros that she and her husband saved for a comfortable old age. Months later, sadly, she says, she lost her husband. Three days ago, a phone call from her lawyer cheered her up: she was considered a particularly vulnerable victim in the GES/BES criminal case. A status granted for the first time in the history of financial crimes in Portugal and that allows it to move to the top of the list of creditors to be compensated, in case of conviction of those accused in the first instance. For the first time, the damage caused to a victim by an economic crime lawsuit is put on the same level as the damage caused to someone who has suffered any other crime.

“Elisa has already won the case!” Lawyer Nuno Silva Vieira told him when he called him to inform him about the most recent decision of the investigating judge Ivo Rosa (the one of May 19), who has the mega case in his hands. BES and the decision to proceed or not with the case to trial.

The lawyer who represented around 600 bank accounts of the former BES, which in practice correspond to around 1,300 holders (because each of these accounts has between two and three names) had already reached the status of simple victim for around 100 injured parties. . Some did not want to go ahead with the request, others died before the outcome of the process, others are still waiting for the same decision. “I know that there are still our applications stored in boxes that came from the old premises of the Central Criminal Investigation Court,” he explained to the Observer. For these, the representative of the injured expects the same decision, but this most recent “victory” is even greater for him and represents a historic milestone for the victims of so-called white collar crimes.

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Elisa is a widow, she has no children and has already thought about selling the house to have money

Elisa, 74 years old, has no children, lives in her own house and receives a pension of 282.96 euros at the end of the month. The €130,000 (100,000 + 30,060) with which she bought various products that the BES branch in Madeira sold to her and her husband had no return. And the money they both had accumulated over a lifetime of work to add to a predictably small retirement is gone. Elisa’s husband fell ill in the year of this loss. And he never managed to get back up and finally died. Since then, Elisa lives alone, because the couple had no children, “disgusted and stressed” and she even thought of selling the house where she lives to have liquidity. “With this statute, she gained new hope,” says Nuno Silva Vieira – who advanced with a request for civil damages so that Elisa be compensated, at the same time that she requested the process so that she is considered a victim especially vulnerable due to her age, of the health problems he faces and also of the low income.

An argument that Judge Rosa did not immediately accept in the process, alleging a lack of documents proving the situation invoked, but which she has now accepted. And if before, as he told Público, Nuno Vieira’s idea was to appeal to parliament to obtain legislation that would regulate the status of victims who are especially vulnerable to economic crimes, now this decision opens the way to request the same for some 200 victims. plus. — “Some in low economic situations, but many with serious illnesses,” she explains.

The thesis defended by the lawyer and confirmed by the judge never convinced, however, the Public Ministry. Before this last order signed by Ivo Rosa, which grants the condition of simple victim to four other victims, the Public Ministry argued that this condition should not be applied to the victims of BES because they are crimes of an economic and financial nature, even alleging that the measures provided for in the law for the victim do not conform to the pattern of economic and financial crime.

Law does not specify types of crimes for victims

For Ivo Rosa, however, the letter of the law does not specify the type of crime to apply to consider someone a victim. The statute of the victim defines that any natural person who has suffered damage must be considered a victim, that is, an attack on their physical and mental integrity, emotional or moral damage, or patrimonial damage, caused directly by an action or omission such as consequence of a crime. The same law establishes that a “particularly vulnerable victim” is considered to be one whose frailty results, in particular, from his or her age, state of health, or disability. More: Victims of violent and especially violent crime are always considered vulnerable.

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The magistrate who will decide the future of the defendants, including the former leader of the BES, Ricardo Salgado, recalls that crimes of criminal association and corruption are also involved in this process, crimes that are part of highly organized crime. Ivo Rosa recalls that the victim has rights to information, assistance, protection and active participation in the criminal process, provided for in the Penal Code and in the Victim’s Statute. And that the legislator himself does not make any distinction as to the type of crime or the type of crime that caused this damage or material damage. Nor do the Criminal Procedure Code and the European directive transposed in 2015 make this distinction. “It is not possible to conclude, as the MP argues, that the condition of victim is excluded from the scope of economic and financial crimes or that people who have suffered property damage caused, by action or omission, by a crime against property, cannot be considered To agree with the MP was to allow an idea that has no correspondence in the letter of the law”, reads the dispatch consulted by the Observer.

“The novelty is that this was never used in financial crimes,” explains the lawyer. This statute can only be for natural persons and until now, victims or vulnerable victims were only considered to be people who suffered crimes of domestic violence, mistreatment “or anything that had to do with crimes between people.”

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Vulnerable victim tops list of creditors

“The condition of victim is already completely new. It allows access to non-existent or cheaper court costs, access to all procedural information, even processes that do not concern you directly (such as the arrest of Espírito Santo)”, says Nuno Silva Vieira. However, “the vulnerable victim has dizzying faculties.” “Since the conviction is notified in the first instance, it must be compulsorily compensated, even before any creditor. And you can even request a monthly pension, regardless of the resources of the accused. Defendants can appeal the case, the process can drag on for years in higher courts, but for these victims, compensation amounts are guaranteed as soon as the trial judge hands down a conviction.

In addition to Elisa, Augusto de Magalhães Pinheiro and Maria Manuel Pinheiro, Silvestre Oliveira Santos and Maria Irene das Neves Oliveira Santos were the last four BES victims who managed to be considered victims (although not particularly vulnerable).

There are hundreds of victims of BES who have demonstrated in Portugal and in various countries. Some even go to court every time there is a session.

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Sessions scheduled until October

The GES/BES mega case was under investigation for six years and culminated in an indictment against 25 defendants, to which Judge Ivo Rosa added five more. The defense had 14 months to request the investigation phase, which has now begun at the end of April, after Ivo Rosa was absent for health reasons.

This week, the sessions are scheduled almost every day, with José Maria Ricciardi testifying on Wednesday and the new defendants in the case, at the request of the assistant, to be confronted on Friday (whether they can testify or not). There are sessions scheduled until October, although the process stops during the judicial holiday (contrary to what the Public Ministry and the insolvent BES requested when they wanted the process to be considered urgent).

At this stage of the process, Judge Ivo Rosa will assess whether the case, upon reaching sentencing, could result in convictions. If so, the judge will pronounce the defendants as he sees fit. Various crimes of association to commit a crime, active corruption, qualified fraud, infidelity, market manipulation, money laundering and document falsification are at stake.