João Costa Andrade, lawyer representing four defendants from the BES financial department, assured that his clients did not falsify GES accounts or make corrupt agreements, reiterating his conviction that they will be acquitted.
In the introductory presentation made on the second day of the trial of the BES/GES case, at the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon, the representatives of Paulo Ferreira, Pedro Serra, Pedro Pinto and Nuno Escudeiro, of the Department of Finance, Markets and Studies (DFME ) of the BES, described his clients as “small fish” in the process and criticized the accusation issued by the Public Ministry (MP).
“They did not deceive the Executive Committee (EC) of BES, they did not even know that the EC was being deceived. The EC was not even objectively deceived. “They did not falsify the ESI accounts, they did not know that the accounts were falsified and this is what the accusers wrote,” the lawyer said.
“It is a fantastic invention by the accusers. My customers are the “little fish” in the food chain that you see in front of you. “They acted legally and correctly.”
According to João Costa Andrade, the four defendants “He never signed any corrupt pact” and acted between 2009 and 2014 – years in which, according to the MP, the company ESI (GES holding company for the financial and non-financial area) was already insolvent – with the belief that “ESI and the other entities were sane.”
“Did the defendants know that this technical insolvency existed? The prosecution says no, reaffirms that they did not know. But they were called, in the words of the accusers, to carry out acts,” he observed, rejecting the parliamentarian’s thesis that the defenses do not question the facts of the case, but rather the interpretation of those facts: “Perhaps I would urge the deputy to read our protests, which radically do not accept those facts.”
Assuring, as an example, that the former members of the DFME did not know the organization chart of the group, João Costa Andrade demanded still time for the defenses to present their arguments in the trial with a view to acquittal.
The morning was also marked by the identification in court of the defendants Isabel Almeida and Cláudia Boal Faria, who had not been present at the first session of the trial.
The former CFO of BES and the former deputy director of DFME declined to comment at this time.
The former president of the BES, Ricardo Salgado, is the main defendant in the BES/GES case and is responsible before the courts for 62 crimes, allegedly committed between 2009 and 2014.
Among the crimes charged are one of criminal association, 12 of active corruption in the private sector, 29 of qualified fraud, five of infidelity, one of market manipulation, seven of money laundering and seven of document falsification.
In addition to Ricardo Salgado, 17 other defendants are also being tried, namely Amílcar Morais Pires, Manuel Espírito Santo Silva, Isabel Almeida, Machado da Cruz, António Soares, Paulo Ferreira, Pedro Almeida Costa, Cláudia Boal Faria, Nuno Escudeiro, João Martins Pereira, Etienne Cadosch, Michel Creton, Pedro Serra and Pedro Pinto, in addition to the companies Rio Forte Investments, Espírito Santo Irmãos, SGPS and Eurofin.
According to the Public Ministry, the collapse of the GES will have caused losses of more than 11.8 billion euros.
Source: Observadora
