The former founding partner of the PLMJ law firm José Miguel Júdice called Rui Pinto a thief this Tuesday, denouncing the “moral and psychological violence” of the creator of Football Leaks in the 17th session of the trial.
“I was visited by this gentleman, who I can only call him a thief and who, with great moral and psychological violence, came to steal from me,” said the former president of the Bar Association, reiterating: “I cannot under any circumstances admit that a citizen, even if it was for seemingly noble reasons, would do what was done to me. It is totally unacceptable from an ethical or legal point of view.”
In a videoconference hearing for the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon, José Miguel Júdice stressed that access to personal and professional documents, even without the subsequent online publication of this information, it is like “a sword” over your head, considering “even more serious a thief who has entered the computer than a thief who has entered the home”, due to the impossibility of being aware of the information that was accessed.
On the other hand, the former lawyer, who exercised his profession between 1975 and 2019 and is now a television commentator, guaranteed “for sanity” he did not go looking for personal information that could have been disclosed on the Internet.
Júdice ruled out any relevant connection to the world of football between his personal files
Questioned by Rui Pinto’s defense lawyer about this information, José Miguel Júdice started by exposing that Francisco Teixeira da Mota was recently his lawyer in a lawsuit and that he also would not like to see publicly exposed the conversations they had and that were covered by professional secrecy .
José Miguel Júdice also ruled out any relevant connection to the world of football between his personal files, assuming that he only represented Benfica “for many years” during Manuel Vilarinho’s term between 2000 and 2003.
As for the ‘Luanda Leaks’ case – which exposed in January 2020 alleged financial schemes by businesswoman Isabel dos Santos and her husband, which will have allowed them to withdraw money from the Angolan public purse through tax havens -, the former founding partner of PLMJ acknowledged having represented in the past “a company that was owned, among other people, by Isabel dos Santos”.
Nuno Morais Sarmento highlighted the “feeling of wantonness and violation of privacy”
Another of the witnesses heard this afternoon was the lawyer Inês Pinto da Costa, also from the PLMJ office, who refused to answer questions related to the ‘Luanda Leaks’ case, whose source is also Rui Pinto, shielding herself from professional secrecy. However, he was more expansive in his responses to the personal impact of seeing his email box allegedly accessed by the creator of ‘Football Leaks’.
“As a professional it is a violation of all principles and as a person it is pure and simple violation. It is a very difficult feeling to overcome knowing that someone has entered our computer and has taken personal and third party documents, even though there is no publication. It does not mean that the documents have not been made available to third parties. From the moment they are removed, control over whoever accesses them is lost “, he stressed.
Nuno Morais Sarmento, also a PLMJ lawyer, highlighted by video conference the “feeling of wantonness and violation of privacy” for seeing his email box being the target of intrusion and recalled that he had information not only covered by professional secrecy , but also under State secrecy, alluding to the case of former spy Jorge Silva Carvalho.
“Published emails appeared that had to do with a client, Jorge Silva Carvalho, that were on my computer and on Dr. João Medeiros’s computer, I cannot say whether they left my computer or his. It was information that, in part , was subject to State secrecy “, he noted, refuting any references in his emails or files to the football sphere or possibly related to the ‘Luanda Leaks’ case.
Rui Pinto accounts for a total of 90 crimes
The trial continues on Wednesday from 2 pm with the hearings of lawyers Miguel Reis, Diogo de Campos and Sandra Lopes and secretaries Mónica Dias, Fátima Bulhosa, Ana Paula Bago and Isabel Mascarenhas, all in the condition of witnesses and connected to PLMJ.
Rui Pinto, 31, is responsible for a total of 90 crimes: 68 of undue access, 14 of violation of correspondence, six of illegitimate access, targeting entities such as Sporting, Doyen, PLMJ law firm, the Portuguese Federation of Football (FPF) and the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), and also for computer sabotage to Sporting’s SAD and for extortion, in the attempted form. This last crime concerns Doyen and was also what led to the pronunciation of the lawyer Aníbal Pinto.
The creator of Football Leaks has been free since August 7, “due to his collaboration” with the Judiciary Police (PJ) and his “critical sense”, but for security reasons, he is part of the protection program of witnesses in an undisclosed location and under police protection.
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