Plans for Manuel Pinho and Ricardo Salgado already being mapped
Last week was ostensibly focused on how “for the first time in Portugal’s democratic history, a former member of government has been convicted of corruption”.
Now, plans are underway to try and ensure jailtime is ‘bypassed’.
Reports explain that former Socialist minister of economy Manuel Pinho may be able to avoid his 10 year sentence by dint of the already two and a half years he has spent with an electronic bracelet under house arrest.
As for his convicted ‘paymaster’, former Banco Espírito Santo boss Ricardo Salgado, defence lawyers have already explained that his Alzheimer’s diagnosis would make incarceration unthinkable.
But this is almost going too far ahead: first there will have to be appeals. Indeed, Pinho’s lawyer has said he is hoping for a much more favourable outcome from a higher court.
The bottom line of last week’s sentencing was that it ostensibly ‘showed’ public prosecutors’ EDP case holds water (there are other aspects of the case, involving other defendants, still awaiting trial).
But for Pinho it could mean he faces another two-and-a-half-years under house arrest. A judicial source has told Diário de Notícias that “the coercive measure of deprivation of liberty must cease when half of the fixed sentence has been exceeded, which, in a sentence fixed at 10 years, may – if the precautionary assumptions are maintained – be in pre-trial detention or in an obligation to remain at home for five years”.
In the case of Ricardo Salgado, advanced age and weakened state of health, including the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, will almost certainly weigh on any appeal decision. “There may be terms of special mitigation”, said the source.
Neither of the defendants can see their convictions suspended, as they received sentences of more than five years. However, the sentences could be reduced on appeal (to a point where they could then be suspended).
There is even the possibility of an acquittal, say reports: Salgado’s defence, represented by Francisco Proença de Carvalho, has criticised the sentence of six years and three months for his client, saying the court condemned “someone who no longer exists”.
The former banker was convicted of active corruption for an illegal act, active corruption and money laundering.
Thus, in spite of all the headlines, this case is “far from a definitive conclusion”, reports admit. The outcome will depend on decisions that will be made in the next appeals, under the customary blaze of media attention.
