Rui Pinto, creator of the Football Leaks website, who was under house arrest, will be released this Friday, with the obligation of weekly presentations to the Judicial Police (PJ), a judicial source told Lusa.
According to the same source, the defendant, who since April 8 this year was under house arrest and banned from accessing the Internet, “will be released today”, but “with the obligation to report to the PJ weekly”.
Rui Pinto begins to be tried on September 4 at the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon for 90 crimes: 68 of undue access, 14 of violation of correspondence, six of illegitimate access and also for computer sabotage to Sporting’s SAD and for attempted extortion. Doyen investment fund.
The change in the coercion measure was decided by the judge in charge of the case, Margarida Alves, president of the panel of judges who will judge Rui Pinto, following a request made by the defendant’s defense requesting his release.
This decision comes almost a month and a half after, on June 25, Judge Margarida Alves, who will have Judges Ana Paula Conceição and Pedro Lucas as assistant, kept the measures of coercion under house arrest and banning access to the Internet to Rui Pinto.
“Despite what was alleged by defendant Rui Pedro Gonçalves Pinto in the application (…), and not ignoring the court’s critical sense and willingness to collaborate with the justice that it has been demonstrating and which is recognized in the case file, the truth is that it is understood that only the application of the custodial deprivation measure sufficiently ensures the precautionary requirements that the present case requires, combined with the prohibition to access the Internet and any devices that allow its access “, justified the judge , in the order of 25 June.
Rui Pinto was in preventive detention from March 22, 2019 until April 8 of this year, the day he was placed under house arrest, but in housing provided by the Judiciary Police.
In early June, the Lisbon Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal from the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) and upheld the instructional decision, handed down on January 17, which pronounced (brought to trial) Rui Pinto for 90 crimes and not for the 147 that included in the prosecution of the Public Ministry (MP).
In September 2019, the 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 the computer systems of Sporting, Doyen, da PLMJ law firm, the Portuguese Football Federation and the Attorney General’s Office (PGR).
Aníbal Pinto, Rui Pinto’s lawyer at the time of the facts and who will be tried for the extortion attempt (in October 2015) of between 500,000 euros to one million euros to the Doyen investment fund, is the second defendant in the lawsuit.
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