The Judiciary Police (PJ) was unaware of the French authorities’ access to the evidence seized from Rui Pinto during the arrest of the creator of Football Leaks in Hungary, PJ inspector José Amador revealed this Tuesday.
In the fifth session of the trial taking place at the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon, the inspector also acknowledged that the Hungarian police collected the material seized in 26 bags at the time of the arrest, but only 24 arrived in Portugal two months later, with the two bags missing would contain “documents and connecting cables”.
“When the bag was opened, there was an absence of two bags. I called Hungary to understand, I managed to get to the Hungarian colleague and at that moment he could not explain the lack of bags. It was necessary for him to transmit the information to and the next day I was told that the bags would have been in the safe [da esquadra] and that following another request the bags would have been taken to another location and that they had been the target of an intervention “, he said.
The Judiciary inspector admitted “some astonishment” with this procedure and revealed that “the bags denoted having been opened and the seals [rubricados pelo arguido] relocated “. At the same time, José Amador also confirmed that he was not” present “in the detention carried out on January 16, 2019, since the Hungarian authorities did not allow intervention in the operation of elements of the Portuguese authorities.
“There was information that did not go through all the police bodies”, underlined the inspector, adding that there was also no “photographic record” of the intervention of other authorities and that there was no “explanation” for this omission: “Requests for clarification were made in several ways and at the highest level, Eurojust. The Portuguese magistrate asked the Hungarian magistrate for information “.
On the other hand, José Amador also referred that it came to his attention that “the defendant would have already made statements to the French authorities while he was in detention” and that he was explained that “the devices would be intervened”. Continued, the judge was asked whether the PJ took steps to investigate the situation with the French authorities, and the witness replied that this “did not occur”, to the best of his knowledge, and that “the Portuguese authorities did not even have the ability to oppose”.
However, José Amador reiterated the idea that the devices seized and in the meantime intervened by French and Hungarian elements were not the target of manipulation, due to the existence of a digital summary made by the PJ in Portugal, after Rui Pinto’s extradition, and that it was identical to that carried out previously by the Hungarian police.
“The digital summary is a fundamental point in the assessment of integrity. We are facing the same digital content, this is the universal methodology used”, concluded the inspector, whose inquiry will be resumed during the afternoon.
Rui Pinto, 31, is responsible for a total of 90 crimes: 68 of undue access, 14 of violation of correspondence and 6 of illegitimate access, targeting entities such as Sporting, Doyen, PLMJ law firm, the Federation Portuguesa de Futebol and the Attorney General’s Office, and also for computer sabotage to Sporting’s SAD and for extortion, in the attempted form. This last crime concerns Doyen and also led to the pronunciation of the lawyer Aníbal Pinto, then representative of Rui Pinto.
The creator of Football Leaks has been at liberty since August 7, “due to his collaboration” with the Judicial Police (PJ) and his “critical sense”, but is, for security reasons, inserted in the protection program of witnesses in an undisclosed location and under police protection.
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