The president of the trial in the BES/GES case rejected the request of some attendees to appoint a conservator for former banker Ricardo Salgado, arguing that this solution provided for in the civil process is not applied in the criminal process.
According to an order signed on Monday by Judge Helena Susano, to which Lusa had access this Tuesday, the court presents several legal arguments to counter the requests made on the first day of the trial, on October 15, in which the former president of the Bank Espírito Santo was present for a few minutes to be identified.
“They reject requests for the appointment of special or provisional curator to the accused Ricardo Salgado”, reads the order, after the position defended by the Public Ministry (MP) and the defense of the former banker himself, who had considered the application of this legal instrument to his client “absurd.”
“In fact, agreeing with the defenders of the accused, it is undeniable that the criminal procedure law would not allow a special or provisional curator (…) to give statements in place of the accused or substitute him in the exercise of the defense in terms of technical representation . on the part of the defender he was not capable of ensuring,” the court understood.
For Helena Susano, the appointment of a guardian in a civil process is a legal resource”intended to compensate for the legal incapacity of those who do not have a designated representative“, explaining that the appointment of a representative would not allow the accused to be replaced in the personal exercise of his procedural rights.
“In addition to there being no gap to be included, there is no doubt that neither the procedural presumption of judicial capacity nor the ways to compensate for judicial incapacity in the civil process are harmonized with the criminal process, with the clear result that the designation of a special guardian or provisional disposition to the accused Ricardo Salgado would constitute a legal solution against [a lei]”, he concluded.
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.
BES/GES case. Defense considers “absurd” request to appoint Ricardo Salgado as curator
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 Rio Forte companies Investments, Espírito Santo Irmãos, SGPS and Eurofin.
According to the deputy, the collapse of the GES will have caused losses of more than 11.8 billion euros.
BES/GES case. Judges accept defense request to perform a new neurological examination on Ricardo Salgado
Source: Observadora
