Operation Marquis: Salt “surprised” by the defendant – the Public.en

The ex-president of BES, Ricardo Salgado has expressed itself “surprised” at having been questioned on Wednesday as a defendant in Operation Marquis, but underlined be "always available" to collaborate with the Justice.

"I continue to collaborate with the Justice. [I was] always available to collaborate with the Justice since the first day," said Ricardo Salgado to journalists at the exit of the Central Court of Instruction Criminal (TCIC), after the first judicial hearing, in which it was applied a coercive measure of prohibition to leave the country and contact with other offenders of the process.

Ricardo Salgado prevented from rushing to the foreign and to contact other offenders

Questioned by reporters about if he was surprised with the diligence, he answered: "I did Not stop to be surprised, but of course that is so. The justice has the right to investigate everything and we we’re here to match".

In a statement, the office of the Prosecutor General of the Republic (PGR) reports that Ricardo Salgado was charged and is charged by facts which may integrate the crimes of corruption, abuse of trust, influence peddling, money laundering and tax fraud qualified.

The judge decided to apply to a defendant to enforcement of the prohibition of the absence abroad without the prior authorisation and prohibition of contacts with the other accused from the Operation Marquis, as well as with certain persons and entities with connections to the Group by the Holy Spirit, adds the statement.

The output of the Central Court of Criminal investigation, the lawyer Ricardo Salgado proved to be equally surprised with the involvement of your client in this process.

"from The point of view of what is in question here doesn’t surprise us that we’re on the Operation Marquis, because we read the news. But surprising enough from the point of view of the facts and of the evidence that dr. Ricardo Salgado is in the Operation Marquis, because, actually, as all have noticed, the theses of the research in the process trample one another," he said to journalists at their lawyer, Francisco Proença de Carvalho.

The Operation Marquis, which has as main defendant in the former prime minister, socialist José Sócrates, with “20 defendants, 15 individuals and five legal persons”, according to OPD.

Among the accused is also the former socialist minister Armando Vara, the businessman Carlos Santos Silva, and manager of the luso-angolan Helder Bataglia. Are still accused John Leg, ex-driver of former prime minister, the entrepreneurs Joaquim Barroca, Paulo Lalanda de Castro (administrator of the Nineties in Portugal, and the defendant in other proceedings), Diogo Gaspar Ferreira and Rui mão de Ferro, Agnes Bridges of the Rosary (the wife of Carlos Santos Silva), the lawyer Gonçalo Trindade Ferreira, and Barbara, Vara, daughter of Armando Vara, as well as the ex-wife of José Sócrates, Sofia Fava.