In what is yet another defeat for the defence team representing former BES banker Ricardo Salgado, appeal court judges have ruled that he must endure a new trial (for fraud/ abuse of confidence/ money laundering) irrespective of his Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
Salgado already faces an eight year jail term for his perceived involvement in a spin-off case from the wider ‘Operation Marquês’ corruption investigation (targeting former prime minister José Sócrates, among many others).
This new trial is part of the wider BES case, centering on the actions of Álvaro Sobrinho and Ricardo Salgado regarding BESA (Banco Espírito Santo Angola) which “lost billions of euros” in the BES banking debacle of 2014.
But the judges’ decision has a caveat: if Ricardo Salgado is considered guilty at the end of this trial (as he was at the end of the last) and if he receives a jail term (as he did in the last) his ‘clinical situation’ will once again have to be assessed.
“The effective enforcement of custodial sentences only occurs when this is necessary from the point of view of the preventive purposes assigned to the punishment”, says the appeal court’s decision.
In other words, Mr Salgado is unlikely ever to see the inside of a jail cell – but the illegalities with which he is charged do need to be ‘tried’ in a court of law so that culpability is recognised (even if the defendant has forgotten everything that may have led to it).
Ricardo Salgado’s wife has already given an achingly sad account of her husband’s condition during a previous trial.
Source material: SIC Notícias
