The Lisbon Criminal Instruction Court today decided to bring Rui Pinto, creator of Football Leaks, to trial for 90 crimes of illegitimate access, improper access, violation of correspondence, computer sabotage and extortion attempt, dropping 57 crimes.
In September 2019, the Public Ministry (MP) accused Rui Pinto of 147 crimes, 75 of which were illegitimate access, 70 of violation of correspondence, one of computer sabotage and one of extortion attempt, for accessing Sporting’s computer systems, from Doyen, from the PLMJ law firm, from the Portuguese Football Federation, from the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) and from the Score Platform and subsequent disclosure of dozens of confidential documents from these entities.
Today, when reading the instructional decision, the criminal investigating judge (JIC) Cláudia Pina pronounced (brought to trial) Rui Pinto for 68 crimes of improper access, for 14 crimes of violation of correspondence, for six crimes of illegitimate access and also for computer sabotage to Sporting’s SAD and extortion, in the attempted form, the latter, a crime for which the lawyer Aníbal Pinto was also pronounced.
The instruction, an optional phase aimed at deciding whether the case continues and in what manner for trial, was required by the defense of the two defendants in the case: Rui Pinto and his lawyer, at the time of the facts, Aníbal Pinto, accused of mediating the attempt to extortion, from 500,000 euros to 1 million euros, to the Doyen investment fund.
JIC Cláudia Pina defended today that Rui Pinto “could never be classified in the category of ‘whistleblower’ (whistleblower)”, because he had a “performance different from that of whistleblower in good faith” and acted in “illicit way”. The judge also held Rui Pinto in preventive detention, a coercive measure applied on March 22, 2019.
Of the 70 crimes of violation of correspondence for which Rui Pinto was accused by the MP, the JIC only pronounced it by 17, three of them qualified, justifying the decision with the fact that the 53 injured parties had not filed a complaint or had given up criminal proceedings against them. the defendant.
In the judge’s opinion, “the defendant is right” when he challenged most of the crimes of violation of correspondence, considering that they “lack a complaint, which was only filed by some of the defendants.
Thus, Cláudia Pina maintained that “the accusation is null with respect to the mailbox owners who have not filed a complaint”, which is why she decided not to have Rui Pinto pronounced on 53 of the correspondence violation crimes.
Another change promoted today by the JIC, which had already been announced on Monday, was the conversion of 68 crimes of illegitimate access into crimes of improper access, due to the fact that Rui Pinto, in these cases, accessed mailboxes and not the computer systems.
As for the crime of attempted extortion, Judge Cláudia Pina proved, in this part, all the facts contained in the prosecution of the Public Ministry.
JIC said that Rui Pinto wanted Doyen’s compensation of between 500,000 and one million euros, adding that Aníbal Pinto must also go to trial for these facts.
The extortion attempt concerns Doyen (between 500 thousand and one million euros), carried out by Rui Pinto in October 2015, with the intermediation of Aníbal Pinto, with the counterpart of the creator of Football Leaks not revealing documents confidential information of this investment fund.
Cláudia Pina stressed that Aníbal Pinto, as a lawyer, should “have a special knowledge of criminal and deontological rules”, in addition to trying to “prevent the practice of dubious and dubious facts”, which he assumed made him “uncomfortable”.
“A serious effort would be to make a complaint to the authorities and identify the authors,” said the judge during the reading of the instructional decision, in which Aníbal Pinto was not present.
The JIC also communicated that “it is legal and that there was no violation of a fair trial” for Rui Pinto, regarding the extension of the original European Arrest Warrant, requested by the Portuguese authorities and authorized by Hungary, which allowed the Portuguese justice to extend the investigation and the prosecution of Rui Pinto.
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