The process in which the former Prime Minister Jose Socrates is indicted for tax fraud, corruption and money laundering after all had origin in another investigation started in 2011 and aimed his friend Carlos Santos Silva, also held under the Operation Marquis. Santos Silva, a businessman in the construction area, is in custody indicted for the same crimes that are attributed to Socrates.
The information contained in a request by the defense of the former ruler to seek the nullity of all acts carried out in the Socrates survey from May 31 this year, including w iretaps, searches and the detention itself.
In that document that the PUBLIC had access, is cited an order of the investigating judge Carlos Alexandre, dated 3 July this year. The same refers to the investigation which aims Jose Socrates began in July 2013. However, the judge refers to an earlier case investigating a “scheme” allegedly used by Carlos Santos Silva and would allow him to “hide assets and income third “.
” Initially indicate any the file that the suspect Carlos Santos Silva would have links to legal and natural persons receiving movement of funds schemes with accounts in Switzerland, “also refers to the order.
This process also runs the Central Department of Investigation and Prosecution and began to be investigated in 2011. That was the year that Socrates was no longer prime minister following the defeat in the June elections.
Contacted by PUBLIC, João Araújo confirmed only have submitted the application on Wednesday at the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon where it is alleged “excessive duration of the investigation” and several nonentities. Araújo stressed that the application “in no way confuses with resource “on the arrest of coercion measure that will be presented next Monday.
So far, the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) insisted on official notes that this case originated” a bank communication made to the Central Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution in law enforcement and prevention of money laundering repression Law No. 25 2008 which transposed into national law Directives of the European Union. “
On the same note, the PGR stressed that it was “an independent investigation of other investigations in progress, as Mont Blanc or Hurricane , having origins in any of these processes. ” The Prosecutor thus refuted reports that the investigation related to Socrates with the process Mont Blanc also started in 2011.
Invalid Order In the application
, the defense of the former prime minister denies the statement particularly complex given by Carlos Alexandre in the process in July this year, when there were any defendant constituted. As such statement implies the extension of the maximum period for preventive detention and investigation, the law provides that defendants must be heard before the decision.
However, as this did not happen, the investigating judge himself tried repair the situation notifying the defendants, made in November at the time of arrest, to advise on the declaration of particular complexity.
So, without this statement, Socrates’ lawyer, João Araújo, underlines the document that “there is much that showed exceeded the legal term for maximum duration of the investigation in this case is 10 months and ended on 31 May last.” This period, considers the lawyer, began counting in July 2013 when he began the investigation. Joao Araujo admits, however, that other interpretation of the law could extend the duration of the investigation until October 2014. In any case, José Sócrates was arrested in November at a time for its defense were already exceeded the survey periods.
“The custody ten months after the knowledge or suspicion of the offense is, unless a lot of respect due to diverse opinion, a real and very serious nonsense,” says João Araújo. For the defense of the former minister, who was eavesdropping and surveillance target for at least 11 months, there is much that Socrates should have been made defendant and respondent “at least since the date on which [the prosecutor] promoted the creation of interceptions Telephone. ” Such an omission in the defense opinion, is a nonentity in the process.
Another of nullity invoked by João Araújo relates to the fact that the process continue in judicial secrecy though, in its opinion, the later have already been exceeded. The lawyer points out that the law imposes the publicity of the case under penalty of it being null. With this argument, the defense asks “are declared void all act practiced since at least May 31, 2014, inter alia, telephone intercepts and other investigative acts, the arrest warrants, searches and seizures, acts and notices of constitution of defendants, their interrogations and the decision applying the coercive measures “. This implies the immediate release of former prime minister and the great destruction of the evidence against Socrates source.
Finally, João Araújo still requires the consultation of “all elements of the process” and that José Sócrates is interrogated again “to clarify the charges against him are made.”
Read the special on José Sócrates
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