There were protests (more than expected) from the injured parties outside the court; The presence in court of the main defendant in the GES/BES case, Ricardo Salgado, was counted (as already admitted); and we also heard (most surprisingly) one of the lawyers of the injured party admit his doubts and reservations about the possible conviction of a person diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. With great media enthusiasm, the country witnessed the first day of trial of one of the most important judicial cases in Portugal.

12 appeared, three other defendants were missing. In the first session of the process, at the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon, Isabel Almeida, Cláudia Faria and António Soares did not appear in the courtroom, but they must be present next Thursday for their respective identification. With the exception of these three, the remaining defendants (there are still three companies in this case, Rioforte, ESI and Eurofin) occupied the first row of seats in the courtroom, in the order indicated in the indictment. Ricardo Salgado was, for this reason, the first defendant in line. Throughout the day (Salgado was not present in the room for more than half an hour), not a single word was exchanged between those who were the target of all attention.

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Apart from name, age, address and profession, none wanted to make a statement, at least not at this early stage.

Ricardo Salgado in court, again, and the protests of the injured

What happened this Tuesday was a kind of repetition of what had already happened during the trial for the EDP case, in February, when Ricardo Salgado and Manuel Pinho, former Minister of Economy, were convicted. As happened at the beginning of the year, this Tuesday the former banker arrived at the Justice Campus accompanied by Maria João Salgado, his wife, who never let go of his hand.

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It took the former president of Banco Espírito Santo exactly ten minutes to travel approximately 100 meters between the entrance to the Justice Campus and the door of the court. On the way he was interrupted by one of the offended BES members, but who, unlike the group that was protesting a few meters further back, defended the former banker. “Where is the provision?” the man asked, referring to the financial safeguard that the institution was forced to create when it was already feared that it would not be able to refund clients the value of the debt it had sold them. And he added the wishes: “May you have good health.”

Once inside the courtroom, Salgado was the first to make the identification. He stood up with the help of Maria João Salgado, who accompanied him to the chair that was right in front of the group of judges chaired by Helena Susano. But he could not clearly answer the ten questions the judge asked him. He got his mother’s name wrong and said he didn’t remember the street where she lives.

“- What was your profession?

– Banker.

– Where you live?

– Alive….

– In Lisbon or Cascais?

– Do you crack?

– And do you know the street?

– Now I don’t remember.”

The judge continued questioning, but got no answer: “Dr. Do you want this trial – we are in a trial – to be held in your presence or without you being present?” Helena Susano wanted to know. “Dr. Do you want to be here?” insisted the president of the jury, to hear little more than a vague response from Salgado: he didn’t know. At that moment, Francisco Proença de Carvalho, Salgado’s lawyer, interrupted and asked to speak to say that his client, as a result of his Alzheimer’s diagnosis, could not answer any more questions.

The judge allowed the trial to continue in the absence of the former banker and Salgado left the courtroom with the help of Maria João Salgado. But, contrary to what happened upon his arrival, the former man of the Espírito Santo Group – the “big boss” of the institution, in the words of the Public Ministry – left the court through the garage and was never seen in public again.

The initial presentations of the lawyers, the expertise (once again) and Salgado’s defenses

Ricardo Salgado’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease remains a topical issue, just as it was during the PDE process. However, in the GES/BES case, the court never validated the defense’s requests for a medical examination. At this point, Salgado’s defense went so far as to say that “the court is obliged to carry out an examination, under penalty of annulment.” Lawyer Adriano Squilacce highlighted the argument that Ricardo Salgado “cannot understand the meaning of this process, much less make statements” and accused the court of rejecting the “innumerable” expert opinions requested by the defense.

“This court must verify whether or not the accused has the conditions” to continue being tried and this is a case, added Adriano Squilacce, that “puts Portugal to be condemned by the European Court of Human Rights.”

But even before the defense attorneys for the 18 defendants in this case took the floor, attorneys representing those in attendance spoke, as happens with injured parties or insolvent estates. If, on the one hand, Nuno Silva Vieira, a lawyer who represents more than 1,300 injured parties, considered that “the main focus should be the reparation of the victims”, Ricardo Sá Fernandes, who also represents some injured parties, expressed some doubts about his Ricardo Salgado’s own position in this trial, taking into account the illness that was diagnosed.

“I have great reservations that a man in the circumstances in which he finds himself could be the subject of a process that leads to a criminal conviction, because that presupposes a person who can defend himself,” said Sá Fernandes. And he added: “No one could accept that a man like this could serve a prison sentence. “I feel obliged to say that I have great doubts that a man can be tried in a criminal context.”

Along the same lines as Sá Fernandes, Henrique Prior, lawyer for another assistant in the process, said he understood that the “sentence should be suspended until a provisional curator is appointed” for Ricardo Salgado.

Salgado’s “autocratic” government

Along with the lawyers, who will continue making their introductory presentations this Wednesday, the Public Ministry also had its first word. In fact, prosecutor Carla Dias was the first to speak and, as in the prosecution, made Ricardo Salgado the main figure of her intervention.

In 15 minutes, the Public Ministry cited parts of the accusation that has more than four thousand pages and once again maintained that “the GES government was assumed autocratically by Ricardo Salgado.”

“GES proved to be immune to successive financial crises. But at least since 2009, ESI [Espírito Santo International] “He was insolvent, as a very restricted group of people knew,” said prosecutor Carla Dias, who has prosecutor Sofia Gaspar and prosecutor César Caniço at her side. “Ricardo Salgado managed to appropriate third-party assets within the scope of GES’s financial business.”