NAt the end of the trial session, held at the Lisbon Central Criminal Court, Francisco Teixeira da Mota expressed his conviction to the court, after being questioned on the subject by the president of the collective of judges, Margarida Alves.
“By the end of the judicial vacation, it will be concluded”, he added. The judicial vacation period starts this Saturday and lasts until August 31, with the next session being scheduled for September 12, at 09:30.
The continuation of the re-examination of PJ inspector José Amador, who coordinated the investigation of this case, marked the afternoon’s hearing. Rui Pinto’s defense did not hide his dissatisfaction with the lack of clarifications obtained after almost an hour of questions on the topics covered at the meeting on September 8, 2020 between the PJ inspectors and the prosecutor of the Public Ministry (MP) at the trial. , Marta Viegas, who asked for this meeting to be held.
“I think this is making fun of us. It has to be clear that the witness is not telling more, not because he doesn’t know, but because he doesn’t want to”, Francisco Teixeira da Mota said, continuing: “I’ve already realized that we’re not going anywhere “.
José Amador said that the meeting aimed to “clarify issues related to the investigation and procedural context situations”, admitting that the PJ’s external diligence reports (RDE) about the meeting on the A5 between Nélio Lucas, collaborator Pedro Henriques and the defendant Aníbal Pinto, in October 2015, may have been addressed, but without advancing what was said on this topic at the meeting, assuming he did not remember.
“I’m not trying to hide the truth from public opinion or the court. I do my best to be as detailed as possible, but I have the right not to remember,” he said. And faced with the fact that the subject of the email to be summoned to the meeting was precisely about the RDE, the inspector coordinating the investigation defended that it was not a mistake and that he did not deny the title of that email.
About the meeting, José Amador had confirmed in the morning the presence of colleagues Carlos Cabreiro, Rogério Bravo, Paulo Abalada, José Garcia and Hugo Monteiro, in addition to the prosecutor. However, in the afternoon, he acknowledged that José Garcia could not have been present because he was possibly on vacation and the inspector himself confirmed, after contacting the Lusa agency, that he was not at that meeting because he was on vacation on that date.
Finally, the defense of Rui Pinto and the defense of Sporting, which is an assistant in this process, expressed themselves as “stupefied” with the recognition by the PJ inspector that the meetings between prosecutors of the MP at the trial stage and inspectors who are witnesses occur regularly. “It’s happened to me on other occasions”, said José Amador, adding: “I do it often, I’ve done it with several parts and I don’t see that it’s bad for the world”.
“We were – myself and, at least, Dr. Francisco Teixeira da Mota – amazed at the frequency of these meetings. I represent Sporting, which was the first to make a complaint, and I also sent several emails to the PJ asking for information about the process. If I had asked for a meeting in these terms, would you have arranged it?”, shot Sporting’s lawyer, who is an assistant in the process, Susana Sollari Cardoso, without failing to question whether the meeting was really necessary and whether the doubts could not be clarified already at the trial.
Rui Pinto, 33, is responsible for a total of 90 crimes: 68 of improper access, 14 of violation of correspondence, six of illegitimate access, targeting entities such as Sporting, Doyen, the PLMJ law firm, the Portuguese Federation of Football (FPF) and the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), and also for computer sabotage of Sporting’s SAD and for extortion, in the attempted form. This last crime concerns Doyen and was what also led to the indictment of lawyer Aníbal Pinto.
The creator of Football Leaks has been free since August 7, 2020, “due to his collaboration” with the Judiciary Police (PJ) and his “critical sense”, but is, for security reasons, included in the witness protection in an undisclosed location and under police protection.
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