The Lisbon Court of Appeal this Tuesday decided to “dismiss the appeal” by Rui Pinto, creator of Football Leaks, and maintained the hacker in pre-trial detention until he was tried for 90 crimes.
“Under the terms and with the grounds indicated, the appeal presented by the defendant Rui Pedro Gonçalves Pinto is dismissed”, can be read in the court ruling, which maintains the most severe coercion measure, of which hacker had appealed, after being preventively detained, in March 2019.
Among the accusations are crimes of illegitimate access, improper access, breach of correspondence, computer sabotage and extortion attempt, with the Lisbon Criminal Instruction Court deciding to drop 57 crimes in relation to the prosecution prosecution in September 2019.
After being arrested in Hungary and extradited to Portugal, under an international mandate, Rui Pinto has been in prison since March 2019. He recently revealed that he delivered a hard drive to the Whistleblower Protection Platform in Africa, which allowed the recent disclosure of Luanda Leaks, a corruption case related to the Angolan businesswoman Isabel dos Santos.
In the appeal filed with the Lisbon Court of Appeal (TRL), Rui Pinto’s defense argued that the dangers related to escape, the continuation of criminal activity and the disruption of the investigation had vanished, while, in the response, the MP maintained that these dangers remained high.
Regarding the danger of disruption of the process, through the manipulation or elimination of evidence, the judges emphasize that “it is undeniable that it will disappear” as the process progresses. “Except that in certain concrete situations, reading cannot be that simplistic”, they stress.
The TRL adds that “the possibilities for conditioning him in several ways, for example, remain”, mainly because it is known “that this is an accused with exceptional technical skills in the area of information technology”.
According to the Relação de Lisboa, this issue, which would be insufficient to dismiss the appeal, adds two others: the possibility of escape and the possibility of continuing criminal conduct.
The decision to apply and maintain the preventive detention measure is related to the crime of extortion in the attempted form, unique in itself liable to this measure and not to another “less constrictive”. “Nothing indicates, in effect, that he has tried new extortions. But pay attention to your current personal situation … ”, reads in the judgment.
The TRL stresses that the dangers identified “are still immense”, in the case of escape, alone or together, and considered that appeals related to the status of whistleblower of the hacker they are extemporaneous to the new decision. “The condition of claiming to be a” whistleblower ” [denunciante], the fact that I was not notified in Hungary to make statements, (…) are arguments already contemplated in the decision of the first instance, the judgment states.
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