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‘Football Leaks’: Rui Pinto hero or hacker — Court postponed decision to July 13 – First Cape Verdean online diary

The reading of the ruling at the Lisbon Central Criminal Court was postponed on Friday, two and a half years after the start of the 34-year-old hacker’s trial. During dozens of sessions, hundreds of experts, witnesses and stakeholders in the case were heard.

Throughout the sessions, Rui Pinto confessed “some regret” for his actions, starting with the creation, in 2015, of the platform Football Leaks through which it released thousands of documents relating to the hiring of players and deals between clubs, law firms and sports mediators.

Rui Pinto was arrested in early 2019 in Hungary, where he had resided since 2016, and began his trial in September 2020. During the period in which he was detained, he began to collaborate with the Portuguese authorities and also supported investigations carried out by the French authorities.

At the final allegations stage, made in January of this year, Rui Pinto said he was sorry and acknowledged having violated the law.

As soon as the sentence is read — postponed on Friday, due to the strike of court employees —, Rui Pinto will continue to have accounts with justice, as a defendant in another case for facts related to those at stake in the current trial, as revealed the defendant’s lawyer in court at the beginning of closing arguments.

“Rui Pinto was made a new defendant in relation to facts that are on trial here. The process is three years old, but the Public Ministry only this Friday constituted Rui Pinto as a defendant”, said the representative, who left criticism of what he said was a “perverse strategy” by the Public Ministry.

The MP asked for Rui Pinto to be sentenced to prison, noting that illegitimate access to the servers of the Portuguese Football Federation, the Attorney General’s Office and the PLMJ law firm (all assistants in the process) had been proven, admitting only that the computer sabotage of Sporting’s SAD has not been proven, as stated in the indictment.

The other defendant in this case, lawyer Aníbal Pinto, who is only responsible for the crime of attempting to extort Doyen, reaffirmed his conduct throughout the entire process at the conclusion of the final arguments, repeating the honesty of his actions: “Throughout I have never committed any crime in more than 60 years of life. For the sake of my defense, I would like it to be clear that at no time was my behavior criminally reprehensible”.

Rui Pinto, 34 years old, 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 law firm PLMJ, 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 what also led to the pronunciation of lawyer Aníbal Pinto.

the creator of Football Leaks he has been free since August 2020, “due to his collaboration with the Judiciary Police” and his “critical sense”, but is, for security reasons, inserted in the witness protection program in an undisclosed location and under protection police officer.

Sources: . Related: “Luanda Leaks”: Lawyer asks for “whistleblower” status for Portuguese hacker28.jan.020; “Portugal arrested a hero”, say speakers in Lisbon about ‘hacker’ Rui Pinto15.fev.020; Interrupted Conversation — Rui Pinto: hacker hero, blackmailing bandit?10.abr.020.

2023-05-03 07:00:00
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