The Public Ministry (MP) refused to withdraw the prosecutor from the trial of the Football Leaks case, requested by the defendants due to the holding of a meeting between the magistrate and inspectors from the Judicial Police after the start of the trial.
According to the order signed by the magistrate of the MP coordinator for the district of Lisbon, Paulo Morgado de Carvalho, the requests for denial of the prosecutor Marta Viegas presented by the defenses of the defendants Rui Pinto and Aníbal Pinto were considered extemporaneous, emphasizing “not assisting the applicants with reason”.
“In the present case, taking into account the date of presentation of the requests and given that the fact invoked as a source of mistrust was raised in the trial session of 04-22-2022, any of the requests under analysis seems to be out of the question. place. of time”, can be read in the document.
The meeting in question took place on September 8, 2020, four days after the start of the trial, and was attended by Rogério Bravo, Paulo Abalada, José García, José Amador and Hugo Monteiro, in addition to the prosecutor. However, the existence of the meeting was only revealed on April 22, 2022, when PJ inspector Aida Freitas (who was summoned and was not present) added -in the context of the confrontation with colleague Hugo Monteiro- an email email sent by José Amador. in which he called on colleagues to “refine the strategy for the investigation”.
For the coordinator of the Lisbon District Prosecutor’s Office, the deadline for submitting a refusal incident in the face of the “serious and serious act that he considers suspicious” is 10 days, starting the calculation. “on the date on which the applicant became aware of the fact on which the application is based”.
Since Aníbal Pinto’s request was submitted on May 9 and Rui Pinto’s on May 11, the 10-day period had already been exceeded.according to article 105 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPP) cited by the magistrate.
At the same time, the requests were considered inadmissible, while “the denial incident It will only have a useful effect if the titular magistrate has not exhausted his power of decision in the procedural stage that he directs.“. The order also states that, “after that moment, due to the nature of the procedural powers that the MP attends, the incident of refusal will be useless.”
“For the reasons stated, whether due to time-limits or inadmissibility, the applications submitted by the defendants cannot proceed,” reads the order.
The coordinator of the MP for the district of Lisbon also maintained that “no other element was presented to support the allegations made in the sense that the magistrate could have instructed, influenced or altered the testimony of the inspectors” of the PJ, highlighting that on that date still no discrepancies were known in the inspectors’ versions of the external diligence reports prepared by the Judiciary.
“The contacts maintained by the deputies, within the scope of their functional duties, with the criminal police bodies, are not suitable to integrate a serious and serious reason capable of justifying a refusal”, concludes Paulo Morgado de Carvalho, who refers to the communication of the decision. Judge Margarida Alves, also informing the Attorney General of the Republic and the Regional Attorney General of Lisbon.
The Football Leaks trial has been suspended due to these incidents of refusal and there are currently no sessions scheduled.
Rui Pinto, 33, is responsible for a total of 90 crimes: 68 of improper access, 14 of violation of correspondence, six of illegitimate access, directed at entities such as Sporting, Doyen, the PLMJ law firm, the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) and the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), and also by computer sabotaging the SAD of Sporting and by extortion, in a tentative way. This last crime concerns Doyen and was the one that also motivated the accusation of the lawyer Aníbal Pinto.
The creator of Football Leaks has been free since August 7, 2020, “for his collaboration” with the Judicial Police (PJ) and his “critical sense”, but is, for security reasons, included in the witness protection program in an undisclosed location and under police protection.
Source: Observadora
